The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
Leading Off
●LA-Gov: Louisiana held its runoff elections on Saturday, and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards won re-election by defeating wealthy Republican Eddie Rispone 51-49. Pelican State Democrats also got some more good news when they prevented the GOP from taking the two-thirds supermajority in the state House that Team Red needed to override Edwards’ vetoes (see our LA State House item below).
Campaign ActionEdwards is the first Democratic chief executive to claim a second consecutive term since Edwin Edwards in 1975, as well as the first incumbent governor to ever compete in, much less win, a runoff. With his victory, Democrats also will maintain control of the one statewide office they still hold in the entire Deep South aside from Doug Jones’ Senate seat in Alabama.
Edwards won his first term in this very red state back in 2015 by defeating scandal-tarred Republican Sen. David Vitter by a wide 56-44 margin in an extraordinary campaign. Edwards was generally popular during his tenure, but he always faced a difficult task winning re-election this year in a state that backed Donald Trump 58-38 and where no other Democrats have won statewide in over a decade. Both parties poured millions into ads, and Trump campaigned in the state just before the Oct. 12 all-party primary and twice during the runoff.