According to three sources who have talked to him this week, Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle is leaning strongly toward running for secretary of state this fall. The former St. Martin Parish president weighed that race against making a challenge to Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, who holds a more attractive office, but it would be a harder race to win. It grew harder on Saturday, when the Louisiana Sheriffs Association endorsed Dardenne. Winning secretary of state won’t be easy; but Angelle, a recently switched Republican, likes his geographic odds against four potential candidates from the New Orleans area: current Secretary of State Tom Schedler, Speaker of the House Jim Tucker (who says he is leaning toward running), Rep. Walker Hines, and the lone Democrat, Caroline Fayard.
— For as much as the GOP Victory Fund, backed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, and the Louisiana Committee for a Republican Majority, led by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, will raise for legislative candidates this year, that money will be chasing fewer Democratic takeover targets, particularly in the state Senate. At this point, no Democratic senator faces a substantial challenge from a Republican. The lone inter-party challenge came this week when Rep. Damon Baldone, D-Houma, announced against Sen. Norby Chabert, R-Houma, who switched parties this year. Within party ranks, however, the main challenges to seven incumbents come from the same party: four Republicans and three Democrats. Two other Democrats, Sens. J.P. Morrell and Cynthia Willard-Lewis, will run against each other in the merged New Orleans district.
They said it: “It’s only going to get worse in the next four years.” —Rep. Chris Roy, D-Alexandria, on partisanship in the Legislature leading to his decision not to seek re-election, in The (Alexandria) Town Talk
(John Maginnis publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com.)
