Gov. Edwards of Louisiana Forced Into Runoff With Republican

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/us/john-bel-edwards-rispone-runoff-election.html

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BATON ROUGE, La. — In a bid to recapture the governor’s mansion, Republicans in Louisiana mounted an aggressive challenge to Gov. John Bel Edwards, and on Saturday, the party succeeded in forcing the incumbent Democrat into a runoff election against a businessman who has never held political office.

Mr. Edwards had hoped to emerge with more than 50 percent of the vote in Saturday’s jungle primary, where candidates from across the political spectrum compete against one another. But Mr. Edwards, a conservative Democrat who opposes abortion and favors gun rights, narrowly missed an outright victory.

Instead, Mr. Edwards, who took 46 percent of the vote on Saturday, will face the businessman, Eddie Rispone, a conservative Republican who has aligned himself with President Trump and who cast himself as an outsider to politics, in a general election on Nov. 16. Mr. Rispone received 27 percent of the vote.

Mr. Edwards has appeared especially vulnerable in a state that Mr. Trump won by 20 points in 2016 and where the president made a last-minute push for the Republican challengers at a rally Friday night. The Republican Governors Association had classified Louisiana as a potential “top pick-up.”

Still, Mr. Edwards, a West Point graduate and the son of a sheriff, has managed to remain palatable among a conservative electorate by underscoring his distance on many issues from the rest of his party. He has pointed to his anti-abortion stance and support of a state law barring abortion after the pulsing of what becomes the fetus’s heart can be detected. He has also been vocal in defending his record on protecting gun rights.

During the campaign, he also boasted of his role in closing a $2 billion deficit he inherited from his Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal. In fact, Mr. Edwards was considered so competitive that higher-profile Republicans opted not to challenge him.

“My fellow Louisianans, we are not going back,” Mr. Edwards told a crowd of supporters who had gathered in Baton Rouge. “That is exactly what Eddie Rispone would have us do. He wants to put us right back on the path that led us straight into the ditch.”

In televised debates and on the campaign trail, Mr. Edwards faced off with a pair of Republicans who competed against each other as much as they did the incumbent; Mr. Rispone challenged Representative Ralph Abraham, whose congressional district covers sections of the northeastern and central parts of the state.

Mr. Abraham received just shy of 24 percent of the vote, trailing Mr. Rispone by three percentage points. He conceded on Saturday night and endorsed Mr. Rispone.

Mr. Rispone, who with his brother founded an industrial engineering, construction and maintenance company in Baton Rouge, had aligned himself with Mr. Trump’s policies, particularly on immigration, and had attacked Mr. Abraham for being, in his view, inconsistent in his support for the president. Mr. Rispone emphasized the dearth of his political experience throughout the campaign as he sought to portray Mr. Edwards and Mr. Abraham as career politicians.

“This is just the first step,” he said in a speech on Saturday night. “We’re going to be the governor of Louisiana. We’re going to turn this state around.” He said that the president had called to congratulate him, prompting his crowd of supporters to chant “Trump!”

Mr. Edwards was first elected, in part, because of the dismay stirred by the huge structural deficits left by Mr. Jindal, who pushed for tax cuts and tax breaks that failed to stimulate the economy. But Mr. Edwards also benefited after his 2015 opponent, Senator David Vitter, was hobbled by a prostitution scandal.

Republicans have called Mr. Edwards an “accidental governor,” and he is one of very few to hold the top office in the Deep South. But competitive, closely watched races in Mississippi and Kentucky have Democrats hoping to claim states in the heart of Trump country.

In Mississippi, Jim Hood, a Democrat who has won four consecutive terms as the state attorney general, is competitive in the governor’s race. And in Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, ranks in polls as one of the least popular governors in the country, bolstering the prospects of Andy Beshear, the state attorney general and son of the former Democratic governor Steve Beshear.

Speaking at a rally on Friday night in Lake Charles, La., Mr. Trump sought to lump Mr. Edwards with leaders from the national Democratic Party, like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader.

Mr. Trump was joined by Mr. Abraham and Mr. Rispone, but he did not endorse either one. Instead, he attacked Mr. Edwards, seeking to energize Republicans and undercut the governor’s lead in the race.

“I need you to send the radical Democrat establishment a loud and clear message,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “You are going to fire your Democratic governor. He’s done a lousy job.”

Mr. Edwards was rerouted on Saturday from campaign events to visit the scene of a building collapse in New Orleans. Portions of a hotel near the French Quarter tumbled down on Saturday morning, killing at least one person and leading officials to shut off a stretch of the city popular with tourists.

Voting on Saturday coincided with the homecoming weekend for the Louisiana State University’s football team, which pitted going to the polls against the state’s devotion to football. Tailgaters flooded into Baton Rouge and a parade wound through the school’s campus.

Indeed, at a gathering Saturday organized by Mr. Edwards’ campaign, much of the room by late evening had toggled their attention between election results and the L.S.U. Tigers dominating the University of Florida.