BATON ROUGE, la. — Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy defeated Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu in a runoff Saturday, denying her a fourth term and extending the GOP’s domination of the 2014 midterm elections.
With Cassidy’s victory, the GOP will hold 54 seats when the Senate convenes in January, nine more than they have now.
Republican victories in two Louisiana House districts Saturday — including the seat Cassidy now holds — ensure at least 246 seats, compared with 188 for Democrats, the largest GOP advantage since the Truman administration after World War II. An Arizona recount leaves one race outstanding.
Cassidy, who spent most of his campaign linking Landrieu to Obama, called his win “the exclamation point” on the message that voters sent Nov. 4.
“This victory happened because people in Louisiana voted for a government that serves us, that does not tell us what to do,” Cassidy said in Baton Rouge.
Early returns showed Cassidy with a wide lead.
Landrieu had narrowly led a Nov. 4 primary ballot that included eight candidates from all parties. But at 42 percent, she fell well below her marks in previous races, leaving her scrambling in a one-month runoff campaign. Republicans dominated the air waves while national Democrats financially abandoned Landrieu’s effort.
“It’s been a fight worth waging,” Landreiu said. “Louisiana will always be worth fighting for.”
The GOP sweep also denied former Gov. Edwin Edwards a political comeback. The colorful 87-year-old politician, who had served four terms as governor, sought to regain public office after serving eight years in federal prison on corruption charges.
In the South, Democrats will be left without a single governor or U.S. senator across nine states stretching from the Carolinas to Texas.
The House delegations from the same region are divided almost entirely by race, with white Republicans representing majority-white districts, and black or Latino Democrats representing majority non-white districts.
The Louisiana Senate race mirrored contests in other states that President Barack Obama lost in 2012, with Landrieu, 59, joining Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor in defeat.
Democrats ceded seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia after incumbents opted not to run.
Like victorious Republicans in those races, Cassidy, 57, made his bid against Landrieu as more about Obama than about his own vision for the job. An Illinois native, Cassidy made few public appearances during the runoff.
But in a state where 73 percent of white voters told pollsters Nov. 4 they “strongly disapproved” of Obama, that was enough to prevent Landrieu from finding her footing.
Cassidy also enjoyed a prodigious advertising advantage in the runoff. Of every dollar spent by outside groups during the one-month runoff, 97 cents benefited Cassidy.
Landrieu tried several messages over the course of her losing effort. Most recently, she had hammered Cassidy as unfit for the job and interested more in partisanship than helping Louisiana.
