So far, Republicans in northeast and north central Louisiana and the entire state aren’t quite on the same page with GOP Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsements for the Senate and Fifth Congressional District races.
In February, Republican Rep. Julia Letlow announced her challenge to incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who last year had drawn Republicans Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez as challengers, on the back of Trump’s declaration of support for her if she ran. Almost immediately thereafter, Miguez abandoned that quest and announced for the Fifth with Trump’s endorsement.
The nods by Trump were supposed to seal the deals for Letlow and Miguez. Both were well-funded and his imprimatur would assure more dough rolling in to enrich campaigning efforts as well as loosen the purse strings of sympathetic groups to spend independently for them and would serve as a signal to distinguish these candidates from others in the field for voters. Together, observers believed these would separate them from their competitors.
Yet less than a month out from the election, it hasn’t happened. Although Letlow has garrnered nearly $4 million, most from special interest groups, and spent almost half of that, she’s locked in a tight three-way battle with Cassidy and Fleming according to a variety of polls. Cassidy raked in $6 million for the first quarter of the year, the majority from special interests but about a third in individual contributions and spent about that much, leaving him with $7 million. Fleming topped them combined with $11 million taken in, although all but about a half-million being self-financed, with his spending around $1.5 million on the campaign and, net loan repayment, having about $2 million on hand.
Coping with well-funded opponents makes it harder to break out of the pack, but more problematically Letlow has been a lackluster candidate. She had never before had to run a campaign against quality opponents and statements from her past displeasing to Republican voters surfaced. That has overshadowed any potential Trump bump.
However, Miguez is doing relatively even worse. He brought millions of dollars from his Senate bid to a field of largely unknown candidates that should have been enough to stake a commanding lead in a field of several. Indeed, since he switched, he has raised $6 million, half his own money, spent about a third and had the rest on hand.
But the only independent poll released concerning the contest earlier this month put his support at only 23 percent, just ahead of the 20 percent registered by GOP state Rep. Mike Echols. The Monroe-area legislator pulled in almost $1.8 million, the majority of it self-financed yet who has spent only about $400,000 to keep pace. Further, the poll noted Echols had better favorability numbers, an important consideration since 42 percent of respondents had yet to make up their minds.
Apparently keeping a lid on Miguez’s support is that he doesn’t live anywhere close to the district, with the northern reaches of his Senate district many miles from the southern boundary of the Fifth. While about two dozen current members of the U.S. House of Representatives live outside of their districts, they all live relatively close to district boundaries with most of them initially having been elected within district boundaries but subsequently having reapportionment land them slightly outside of these. His opponents have exploited that fact, with Echols terming him a “carpetbagger.”
The fact that Miguez ran statewide for months and has far outspent his opponents yet hasn’t cracked a quarter of the electorate is a bad sign for his expanding substantially beyond that proportion. Echols can match Miguez conservative credential by conservative credential plus has represented the northern part of the district in the House and as a Monroe city councilor. Trump’s endorsement may not be enough to change the perception of Miguez being too much of an outsider to district interests to win against a candidate with resources like Echols.
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