Tag Archives: Rob Maness

The Last Senate Race

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 23, 2016 — The open Louisiana Senate campaign has not yet drawn much national attention, but that appears to be changing and in a big way. A new poll underscores just how close the contest is getting in the midst of surprising revelations.

Because the state’s jungle primary runs concurrently with the November general election, the action among the 24 candidates who will appear on the ballot is just now beginning to sizzle. Straight from the annals of what are always colorful Louisiana campaigns, the current race has is now tinged with prostitution and even murder.

Last week, controversy erupted when author Ethan Brown released his new book “Murder in the Bayou”, which details the demise of the “Jeff Davis 8”, the apparently related individual killings of sex workers in Jefferson Davis Parish.

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The Run-offs are on in Georgia and Louisiana

Georgia and Louisiana are the only two states that hold post-general election run-offs. In Louisiana, the state primary is concurrent with the general election and features all candidates appearing on the same ballot. Thus, if a contender exceeds 50 percent of the vote, the person is elected outright. In Georgia, all party nominees must obtain an absolute majority to secure election. Therefore, remembering that Georgia has a run-off system for primary nomination, it is conceivable that a candidate would have to endure four separate elections in order to claim a political office.

In 2014, despite many predictions that both the Georgia Senate and governor’s race would be forced into a post-election run-off, neither were. Businessman David Perdue (R) captured the Senate seat with 53 percent, the same percentage in which Gov. Nathan Deal (R) secured re-election. Therefore, the “second generation of Democrats”, meaning Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former US Sen. Sam Nunn (D), and Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, both failed to fulfill pre-election expectations.

And, with seven of the state’s 14 congressional district incumbents running Continue reading >

New Senate Data Show Tight Races in Three States

Georgia

The Georgia Republican senatorial run-off enters the stretch drive and a new poll suggests that the two candidates, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA-1) and businessman David Perdue, are headed for a photo finish.

Insider Advantage, polling for Morris News and Atlanta TV-5 (July 7-9, 1,278 likely Georgia Republican run-off voters), finds the two candidates separated by just two points, 43-41 percent (in Kingston’s favor). Immediately after the primary, it was the Savannah congressman who jumped out to as much as a double-digit lead over Perdue, but now multiple research services are projecting a much closer contest, if not a dead heat.

The election is scheduled for July 22, so the final days will feature hot and heavy campaigning. Kingston has been a prolific fundraiser and attracts outside support from a major US Chamber of Commerce media buy of just under $800,000 for the run-off alone. Perdue is hammering the 10-term representative over his many votes as a Continue reading >

Louisiana: McAllister Back in the Game, Landrieu Teetering

Scandal-tainted Rep. Vance McAllister (R), who announced that he would not run for a second term after he was videotaped kissing a woman other than his wife soon after his election to the House, has done an about-face. The freshman congressman now says he will run for re-election.

McAllister, winning the late 2013 special election to replace resigned Rep. Rodney Alexander (R) with an outsider’s campaign momentum and Willie Robertson’s help, the latter of Duck Dynasty fame (the district’s most famous resident), easily defeated state Sen. Neil Riser (R) in the special run-off election, 60-40 percent, despite the entire Louisiana Republican political establishment supporting the state legislator. After McAllister quickly found himself in personal trouble and stated he would not run in the regular 2014 election, all eyes again turned toward Riser. Now that the senator has decided not to run for Congress again, McAllister has re-entered the political picture.
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Three New Senate Polls Show Incumbents in Trouble

Mississippi

A new survey testing the Republican primary race between veteran Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran and state Sen. Chris McDaniel again suggests that this intra-party incumbent challenge is becoming the most serious in the nation.

According to a NSON Opinion Strategies survey (released April 2; 400 likely Mississippi Republican primary voters) conducted for the Tea Party Express and provided to Breitbart News, the senator only maintains a 45-37 percent lead over the Tea Party-backed state legislator. This is consistent with earlier public data.

Sen. Cochran, 76 years of age and in his 42nd year of congressional service, is running for a seventh term. He was the first Republican senator elected in a Deep South state during the modern political era, thus beginning the region’s political realignment trend. He has been under attack from conservative organizations for a period of months. It is already known that those outside groups with people and money, such as the Tea Party Leadership Fund, the Tea Party Express, and the Club for Growth, are planning to expend serious resources to independently support the challenger’s effort.
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Louisiana Senate Race Takes an Interesting Turn

The Louisiana Senate race took a bit of an unexpected turn during the past few days that may lead to Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) and Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA-6) settling their pending contest in the November 2014 primary election instead of being forced into a December run-off. Under Louisiana election law, all candidates appear on the same primary ballot, which is held concurrently with the national general election. If no candidate receives an outright majority, the top two, regardless of political party affiliation, advance to a December run-off election. In 2014, the first election is Nov. 4.

Two Republican state legislators who had already announced their intentions to join the field of candidates challenging Sen. Landrieu suddenly withdrew from the contest and endorsed Rep. Cassidy. This leaves Tea Party-backed former Air Force officer Rob Maness in the Republican field alone with Cassidy.

Though both Sen. Elliott Guillory and state Rep. Paul Hollis would have been relatively minor US Senate candidates, their presence on the ballot was significant. The more individuals drawing votes in such an Continue reading >

Polls Show Tightening in Michigan, Louisiana

Michigan

Late last week, local Michigan pollster Denno Research released the results of their new poll in conjunction with Lambert, Edwards & Associates, also a Michigan-based firm (Nov. 12-14; 600 registered Michigan voters). They again detect a statistical tie for the state’s impending open US Senate race, projecting Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI-14) to a mere 37-36 percent advantage.

This past July, Denno (July 23-24; 600 registered Michigan voters) contradicted most conventional political analyses. They reported then that the two major party candidates had fallen into a 39-39 percent tie. EPIC MRA, another Detroit area survey research firm, later published confirming numbers (Sept. 7-10; 600 registered Michigan voters; 38-37 percent Democratic edge). Up until that time, Peters was a presumed solid favorite over former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R).

This race is already becoming more competitive than was once believed likely, Continue reading >