Mediaboss Marketing

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Bill Cassidy, a doctor and Republican congressman, defeated three-term Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in a runoff election Saturday, sending home the last Deep South Democrat in the U.S. Senate, according to the Associated Press.

Even though Landrieu narrowly edged out Cassidy in a multicandidate primary in November, Cassidy's victory in the runoff was widely expected: A second conservative candidate with a significant following, Rob Maness, ran a strong third in the primary vote and subsequently endorsed Cassidy.

More generally, the political terrain for a moderate Democrat like Landrieu has become increasingly challenging in Louisiana. White Democratic voters have continued their defection to the Republican Party, and roughly 125,000 reliably Democratic voters -- many of them African-Americans -- were permanently displaced from the state by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Cassidy, 57, is an associate professor of medicine at Louisiana State University who entered the House of Representatives in 2009. With his election, the Republican Party picked up nine Senate seats in the midterm elections, giving it a total of 54 senators when the 114th Congress convenes in January.

Cassidy closely followed the Republicans' strategy this year of nationalizing congressional elections. His campaign and outside groups supporting him regularly noted that Landrieu had voted with Obama 97 percent of the time.

Louisiana regularly ranks as one of the poorest and unhealthiest states in the country, but Cassidy's biography allowed him to preemptively combat any suggestion that he was insensitive to the needs of the poor.

According to his congressional website, he treated uninsured patients at the public Earl K. Long Hospital in Baton Rouge for two decades, founded a community health care clinic, and in 2005 set up an emergency medical facility for Katrina evacuees in an abandoned Kmart.

In the House, Republicans will hold at least 246 seats come January, according to election results Saturday, giving the GOP a commanding majority that matches the party's post-World War II high during Democratic President Harry S. Truman's administration.

The GOP retained control of two seats in runoffs in Louisiana, expanding the advantage for Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who can afford defections from his increasingly conservative caucus and still get legislation passed. Combined with the Republican takeover of the Senate, Congress will be all-GOP for the final two years of President Barack Obama's second term.

The latest count gives the GOP a 246-188 majority. One race, in Arizona, is still outstanding.

Visit link:
Democrat Landrieu is defeated in Louisiana Senate runoff