Pointing to Gov. John Bel Edwards’ win over outgoing U.S. Sen. David Vitter, candidate Foster Campbell is dismissing predictions that a Democrat will have a longshot at winning Louisiana’s open Senate seat, the USA Today Network of Louisiana reports.
“I won’t back down from a fight,” says Foster, a Democrat who came in second to Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate primary.
Kennedy won Tuesday’s primary election with 25% of the vote. Campbell finished second with 17%, edging out Republican U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany’s 15% tally.
But Joshua Stockley, a political scientist at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, says any Democrat faces long odds in Louisiana.
“There’s no reason to believe Louisiana will be leaving the Republican column in the U.S. Senate,” Stockley says. “What should concern Democrats is how perilously close they came to having two Republicans in the runoff.”
The men paint each other as polar opposites, but they will share similar views on advocating for restrictive abortion laws and wide open gun laws.
Campbell hopes to tap into a populist uprising that helped send Republican Donald Trump to the White House. “I’ll be a voice for the people, not the powerful,” he says.
