Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle has made huge strides in the race for Louisiana governor, according to a recently released poll by Verne Kennedy’s Market Research Insight firm. According to a report by The Ouachita Citizen, Angelle has climbed to 18 percent among the four declared candidates, and with 3.5 percent margin of error is statistically even with the lone Democrat in the race, state Rep. John Bel Edwards, who polled at 21 percent. U.S. Sen. David Vitter leads in the poll, as he has in every poll taken throughout the spring, with 32 percent. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne trails in the low teens, according to the OC story. Sixteen percent of respondents were undecided.
This latest poll is a stark contrast to a Southern Media and Opinion Research poll conducted in late May where Angelle was pulling just 5 percent of the vote to Dardenne’s 16. Vitter led that poll with 38 percent and Edward’s came in the 24 percent support.
The one consistency in the various polls is a Vitter-Edwards runoff, which the smarmy New Orleans Republican Vitter would love because a Democrat cannot currently (and for the foreseeable future) win a statewide election. In fact, the Vitter camp has been almost effusively complimentary of Edwards while ignoring GOP candidates Angelle and Dardenne, both of whom are considered moderate Republicans who could give Vitter trouble in a runoff.
That begs the question: Is John Bel Edwards to the 2015 Louisiana gubernatorial race what Ralph Nader was to the 2000 presidential election — a spoiler? Columnist and LSU journalism professor Bob Mann opined on that in mid-May.