Welcome to the Runoff!: LA 2015 Liveblog

[Miles]

Gravis has the race closer than I expected:

Vitter- 46%
Landrieu- 44%

Vitter- 35%
Dardenne- 31%

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Approvals/Favorables from Rassy:

Vitter- 52/38
Jindal- 45/53
Obama- 44/53

That's high for Obama in LA........really high....

Whether the democrats can win this race centers on whether they can persuade Mitch Landrieu to actually run. Enough said.

[Miles]

His approval in that last poll was 37/58. I can't see him sinking much below that because he has a high floor in LA.

[Miles]

PPP's last poll, again, has Vitter in the driver's seat. He leads Dardenne, Landrieu and John Bel Edwards:

Vitter (R)- 50%
Edwards (D)- 32%

Dardenne (R)- 44%
Edwards (D)- 30%

Dardenne (R)- 43%
Landrieu (D)- 39%

Vitter (R)- 47%
Landrieu (D)- 38%

Vitter (R)- 37%
Dardenne (R)- 30%

If Jindal could run again, Edwin Edwards would beat him 47/43.

[Miles]

And the Cajuns have their candidate: Scott Angelle is running for Governor.

This was a mild surprise to me, as LG seemed more likely. Anyway, this makes the election more interesting.

Angelle has strong ties to Acadiana plus is known around the capitol area. He could emerge as a better anti-Vitter than Dardenne.

[Miles]

Angelle will be Jindal's candidate, too.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Angelle will be Jindal's candidate, too.

Isn't that like being endorsed by Bob Taft?

[KCDem]

Angelle will be Jindal's candidate, too.

RIP Angelle

[Miles]

Angelle will be Jindal's candidate, too.

Isn't that like being endorsed by Bob Taft?

There's still a decent Jindal faction of th LAGOP. The money that Jindal/donors would bring Angelle plus a regional advantage in Acadiana could concievably get him a runoff spot.

Even a Jindal Republican would likely still start out a slight favorite over a Democrat in the runoff.

[Miles]

Dave Weigel goes down to LA to catch up with Elbert Guillory.

[Miles]

Vitter will be fundraising with Cassidy...over Popeye's:

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[Panda Express]

Popeye's is really good. KFC is just rubber dunked in grease and all the employees that work Chick-Fil-A are really creepy. I was surprised when I saw Popeye's in Bangkok.

[Miles]

^ From what I understand, they have some sort of contract with the government so that Popeye's is one of the most common restaurants at military bases/posts. Thats why when I first spent time in the DC area (two summers ago), I was (pleasantly) surprised that they had Popeyes in NOVA but we didn't have them in Charlotte, given that its further from Louisiana.

[Flake]

^ From what I understand, they have some sort of contract with the government so that Popeye's is one of the most common restaurants at military bases/posts. Thats why when I first spent time in the DC area (two summers ago), I was (pleasantly) surprised that they had Popeyes in NOVA but we didn't have them in Charlotte, given that its further from Louisiana.

There's no popeyes in Charlotte? There are a lot of them down here .

[Miles]

^ At the time, we didn't have any in Charlotte.

We actually just got them there within the past year or so.

[Miles]

Sorry to shift the subject away from Popeye's , but we have anew SMOR poll:

Vitter- 36%
Edwards- 26%
Dardenne-19%
Angelle-3%
Not sure-16%

Vitter gets 61% of Republicans.

Also, can we please get a sub-board for 2015 polls?

[Miles]

Maness, at whatever level he's still relevant, will probably be helping Vitter. Despite running against the party last year, he's no Chris McDaniel, as he quickly cozied up to Cassidy/Vitter after the primary.

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[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Miles, what's the latest on whether Mitch Landrieu is going to jump in?

[Miles]

^ I'm skeptical. Democrats for the past year or so have been pretty loyal in plugging Edwards. My guess this time last year was 40% chance than Landrieu runs, and I'll basically stand by that now.

[Miles]

There was a candidate forum today; I'll try to find a video. By most accounts, all four candidates gave good performances. You basically have Dardenne and Angelle both going for the center, which hurts them both overall. Edwards and Vitter, on the extremes, obviously have the luxury being guaranteed niches in the field.

[Miles]

No link yet, but there was a poll from North Star Research:

Vitter- 24%
Edwards- 20%
Kennedy- 13%
Dardenne- 10%
Angelle- 2%

[Miles]

Though there was talk of him running, ex-Rep. Rodney Alexander announced that he will work as a lobbysit.

His candidacy would have clogged the persisting void for a northern candidate. This means that the Florida parishes and northward will be the swingy area.

Alexander was generally considered the least fiscally conservative Republican in the delegation while he served, so I imagine his candidacy would have hurt Dardenne the most.

[Miles]

Fundraising numbers for 2014:

Dardenne- $690K raised, $1.5M CoH
Vitter- $4M raised, $3.5M CoH
Angelle- $1.5M raised, $1.4M CoH
Edwards- $1M raised, not sure about CoH

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Although, Vitter will be favored, unlike Senate race, local issues will be more of a factor, which will be used against Vitter.

[Miles]

Just throwing this out there, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Rob Maness runs for something this year, given 1) the state's late (September) filing deadline and 2) it looks like he's keeping his events calender pretty busy. He's spoken at several GOP/right-leaning venues since the election last year.

Unlike Chris McDaniel, Maness has largely made peace with the party apparatus after losing as an insurgent; he'd be a better candidate because of that.