John Kennedy leads in Louisiana’s Senate race

By G.R. | NEW ORLEANS

SINCE the morning of November 9th, Americans have known who would occupy 99 of the 100 seats in the Senate when the 115th Congress is seated in January. The only wild card left is in Louisiana. The state’s unusual system features a “jungle primary”—in which candidates from all parties square off in a sort of mad steeplechase—on November 8th. Assuming no one gets 50% or more of the vote, the two top finishers then meet a month later, when few voters are usually paying attention.

The December 10th run-off might have had high stakes had Democrats captured two more Senate seats in November. But with Republicans already assured of at least a 51-49 majority in the upper chamber, the drama will be muted. Given Louisiana’s deep-red leanings—Hillary Clinton captured just 38% of the vote in the state—it is difficult to picture a happy outcome for Foster Campbell, a Democrat, over John Kennedy. In the jungle primary, Mr Kennedy took 25% of the vote to Mr Campbell’s 17%. It wasn’t a runaway, but Republicans taken together outpolled Democrats by a nearly 2-1 ratio.

What is interesting about the race this year is the way in which Mr Campbell is setting out to appeal to the white working class voters that abandoned the Democrats in droves on November 8th. An unapologetic populist with a deep liberal streak who talks bluntly about helping the poor and taking on powerful interests like oil and gas, he delivers his message in a thick Southern drawl and has been careful not to associate himself too closely with Democrats like Mrs Clinton and Barack Obama that would be polarising in Louisiana. In one advert, he brandishes one of his many shotguns, trying to persuade sceptical Republicans that he’ll oppose any form of gun control.

The one party colleague whose name Mr Campbell has happily invoked is that of the governor, John Bel Edwards, who miraculously managed to snare the state’s highest office last year by stressing his conservative values—and more importantly, by having had the great good fortune to run against an unpopular Republican.

Mr Campbell is clearly trying to replicate Mr Edwards’ playbook, seeking to tie Mr Kennedy to has-been Republicans, including former Bobby Jindal, the former governor and David Vitter, the outgoing senator Mr Edwards beat in the gubernatorial race. Mr Campbell’s campaign is being run by the same operative who helped Mr Edwards pull off his unlikely triumph.

Mr Kennedy, meanwhile, is leaning on a more traditional campaign blueprint for a Louisiana Republican facing off against a Democrat, by repeatedly reminding voters of the two candidates’ political affiliations. He opens one advert by pronouncing that Obamacare “sucks” and says he will never support a new tax for any reason, under any circumstances. A similar strategy worked beautifully in the last Senate race in the state in 2014, when Bill Cassidy unseated longtime United States Senator Mary Landrieu by simply noting, again and again, how often she voted with Mr Obama.

The two candidates this time round have taken slightly but not dramatically different tacks on Donald Trump’s ascension. Mr Kennedy, who backed Mr Trump enthusiastically in the primary, promises he’s the guy who will help the president-elect drain the Washington swamp. “After all, we do know a thing or two about swamps in Louisiana,” he drawls in one advert, one of several Kennedy commercials that appear to be aimed at making viewers forget he studied at Oxford University.

Mr Campbell, wisely perhaps, is careful not to trash Mr Trump too roundly, saying he will work with the bombastic businessman when he has good ideas—such as rebuilding America’s infrastructure—and oppose him when necessary.

Perhaps oddly, given his country-boy ways and his conservatism on issues like abortion and guns, Mr Campbell has become a new darling of America’s liberals. This has little to do with his views, or his prospects, and much to do with the left’s post-election gloom.

For those hoping to do something, anything, to swing the balance of power in Washington, DC Louisiana’s Senate race is about the only game in town. That has translated into a slew of checks, small and large, pouring into Mr Campbell’s war chest, and offers of phone-banking and other help from Democratic activists from around the country.

The notion that the money and extra attention will translate into an avalanche of votes for Mr Campbell seems quaint at this point. But it at least has made what would have otherwise been a rather pedestrian run-off race into a spectacle worth watching.