BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – It is just a month away from the primary election for the U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana. Political ads are in full swing as Louisiana inches closer to election day. Incumbent Senator John Kennedy released an ad this week that has people talking.
“This is I think an attempt to get his base to remind people why they should vote for Republicans,” said Southern University Political Science Professor Dr. Albert Samuels.
In the ad, he talks about the high crime rates in the state and says “if you hate cops because they’re cops, call a crackhead”. Samuels said it is following the national trend of focusing on crime to take the heat off the abortion debate.
“You’ve got some republicans who don’t want people to remember they were actually against choice. So now they have shifted to kind of a traditional fallback issue,” Samuels said.
He also said the crime topic has made the rounds in years past as a “tried and true GOP tactic”. With crime on the rise in Louisiana and it being such a personal issue, Samuels said it often works in garnering support for a candidate.
This election cycle has also seen attention grabbing ads from Gary Chambers that have shown him smoking marijuana and burning a confederate flag that have gotten national attention.
“Some of what he’s doing is simply to get name recognition…but it also sort of reflects this idea that Louisiana is not as conservative, not as red as it appears. In fact, what Louisiana is is a non-voting state,” Samuels said.
Samuels said Chambers is working to expand the democratic base in Louisiana to be different from the typical “establishment” pick.
Candidate Luke Mixon has strayed away from the more controversial advertisements to maintain the more moderate role. Samuels said he often portrays Kennedy as a “cartoon character” and places himself as a reasonable pick that could draw Louisianans from both sides. But Samuels said Kennedy is still pulling out the big margins of support.
“Right now, I don’t really see much that has changed the fundamentals of this race… This particular race still appears to be John Kennedy’s race to lose,” Samuels said.
Election day is Nov. 8. If a candidate gets more than 50% of the vote there will not be a runoff. If all candidates get below 50% then the general election for the seat will be on Dec. 10.