Louisiana runoff to decide nation's last congressional seats

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The long campaign season finally ended Saturday in Louisiana, a month later than the rest of the country, with voters deciding the nation's final three congressional seats in runoff elections.

Polls had closed in an election that will fill an open U.S. Senate seat, with voters choosing between Republican John Kennedy, the state treasurer, and Democrat Foster Campbell, an elected state utility regulator.

Kennedy is the front-runner in a state where Donald Trump won 58 percent of the vote. But Campbell has been getting a fundraising and social media assist from Democrats around the nation hoping to lodge a victory in their grim election cycle. If Kennedy wins, the GOP would secure a 52-48 edge in the Senate when the new term begins Jan. 3.

Voters also are filling two open U.S. House seats, for the 3rd District representing southwest and south central Louisiana and the 4th District covering northwest Louisiana.

Louisiana has an open primary system in which all candidates run against each other. In the contests for the open congressional seats, the November primary ballots were packed with contenders, so the top two vote-getters advanced to Saturday's runoff.

The Senate runoff has drawn national attention, with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence each traveling to Louisiana to rally for Kennedy. The national GOP has provided resources and staff into assisting Kennedy's campaign, while national Democratic organizations have largely abandoned Campbell, assuming an easy win for Republicans.

Though Campbell's chance appeared slim, donations for his campaign have poured in from around the country, and several Hollywood celebrities championed his candidacy as a way to bolster resistance to the Trump presidency.

The Senate seat was open because Republican David Vitter decided against running for a third term after losing the governor's race last year. Both men vying for the seat are well-known figures, in Louisiana politics for decades.

Kennedy, an Oxford-educated lawyer from south Louisiana, is in his fifth term as treasurer, a role in which he repeatedly drew headlines for financial clashes with Louisiana's governors.

He sprinkled speeches with examples of government-financed contracts he considered outrageous, like money "to study the effects of Swedish massage on bunny rabbits." In the runoff, he ran a safe, TV-focused effort highlighting his support for Trump and his opposition to the federal health overhaul.

"The good thing about this race is that nobody's going to confuse the two of us," Kennedy said of his opponent. "He's a liberal. I'm a conservative. He supported (Hillary) Clinton. I supported Mr. Trump. He believes government can spend the money you earn better than you can. I don't."

Campbell, a cattle farmer and former state senator from north Louisiana, is a populist who railed against "Big Oil," wants to increase the minimum wage and talks openly about man-made climate change. He pledged that in Washington he "won't be in anybody's shirt pocket."

He's also a Louisiana Democrat — strongly opposed to abortion and supportive of gun rights. He insists he's got a chance to win.

"For 40 years I've been in politics, and I've been able to get crossover votes, independent votes," Campbell said.

Kennedy hit Campbell for supporting Clinton. Campbell called Kennedy a flip-flopper during prior Senate bids, because the treasurer ran in 2004 as a liberal Democrat and the most recent two times as a conservative Republican.

In the 3rd District race, the two Republicans have traded blistering attacks: Scott Angelle, a member of the Public Service Commission and well-known public official for nearly 30 years, and Clay Higgins, a local celebrity known as the "Cajun John Wayne" for attention-grabbing Crime Stoppers videos he filmed when he was a sheriff's captain.

Angelle had been the presumed front-runner, but Higgins capitalized on disenchantment with career politicians to tighten the race with only a fraction of Angelle's money and a bare-bones organization.

The 4th District race between Republican Mike Johnson and Democrat Marshall Jones was less attack-laden.

The front-runner, Johnson focused on his work on conservative issues as a constitutional attorney and in his two years as a state lawmaker. Jones, also a lawyer, downplayed his party affiliation, running as an anti-abortion, gun-rights Democrat who could work with Trump.

The House seats are open because Republicans Charles Boustany and John Fleming unsuccessfully sought the Senate seat instead of re-election.

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