Louisiana Republicans moving quickly to nail down their bases for competitive Senate race

As more and more names of Louisiana politicos continue to be floated as possible candidates for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. David Vitter, the announced candidates—Rep. Charles Bous­tany, Rep. John Flem­ing and former Rep. Joseph Cao—are rapidly working to nail down their bases of support.

As The National Journal reports, time is of the essence because of the wide field of potential candidates. At least 10 Re­pub­lic­ans have ex­pressed in­terest in running in the month since Vit­ter’s gubernat­ori­al loss and sub­sequent re­tire­ment an­nounce­ment, cre­at­ing a jumbled field that threatens to splinter each of their geo­graph­ic­al and ideo­lo­gic­al bases.

Among those mulling a run are 2014 Sen­ate can­did­ate Rob Maness and Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion­er Eric Skr­metta, who have formed ex­plor­at­ory com­mit­tees. State Treas­urer John Kennedy also recently dis­trib­uted to sup­port­ers pos­it­ive polling num­bers from a sur­vey con­duc­ted by a su­per PAC formed to sup­port him in a Sen­ate race.

Another potentially key figure in the race is Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion­er Scott An­gelle, who has said he’s look­ing at the Sen­ate con­test and will make a de­cision soon after the hol­i­days. For Bous­tany, a cen­ter-right Re­pub­lic­an and the dean of Louisiana’s con­gres­sion­al del­eg­a­tion, clos­ing off An­gelle’s sup­port base is par­tic­u­larly crit­ic­al. Bous­tany would start with a sig­ni­fic­ant ad­vant­age if he can dom­in­ate the south­w­est re­gion of the state, where both men are from. If he can’t, al­lies say the two are likely in for mu­tu­ally as­sured de­struc­tion.

“If you split Aca­di­ana between those two, and you would, it’s go­ing to be tough for them to gath­er enough sup­port to get in­to a run­off, and that’d prob­ably bode very well for Flem­ing,” says Bret Al­lain, a state sen­at­or from St. Mary Par­ish in Aca­di­ana, and a per­son­al friend of both men. Al­lain hasn’t made an en­dorse­ment in the race, and says he won’t do so un­til the field settles.

While Bous­tany’s is­sue is geo­graph­ic­al, Flem­ing, a found­ing mem­ber of the con­ser­vat­ive House Free­dom Caucus, has com­pet­i­tion threat­en­ing to di­vide his ideo­lo­gic­al base.

Flem­ing hopes to rally the far right’s sup­port, much of which aligned with Maness in the 2014 Sen­ate race. Maness, a re­tired Air Force col­on­el who made his first bid for of­fice last year, has formed an ex­plor­at­ory com­mit­tee and kept in touch with many of the groups Flem­ing hopes to court.

Though Flem­ing an­nounced his can­did­acy with the sup­port of Cit­izens United Polit­ic­al Vic­tory Fund, an­oth­er ma­jor play­er, the Sen­ate Con­ser­vat­ives Fund, says it’s keep­ing its op­tions open. In an in­ter­view with The Na­tion­al Journ­al shortly after Maness filed for the race, John Brabend­er, a seni­or ad­viser to Flem­ing’s cam­paign, ac­know­ledged the over­lap in their bases, but said he was con­fid­ent many of Maness’s al­lies in 2014 would be with Flem­ing this time.

As for Bous­tany, he has already locked down the sup­port of some loc­al oil and gas ex­ec­ut­ives, an in­dustry that split its sup­port between An­gelle and Vit­ter in the gov­ernor’s race.

“I met with [An­gelle] and talked to him about it … I told Scott, I’m gonna be for Charles,” says Don Briggs, pres­id­ent of the Louisi­ana Oil & Gas As­so­ci­ation.

Briggs says he hopes An­gelle will avoid an ugly fight for south Louisi­ana by seek­ing Bous­tany’s House seat in­stead, a pro­spect An­gelle al­lies have said he is con­sid­er­ing.

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