BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - With only three weeks remaining before the Nov. 6 election, the first television ad is on the air in Louisiana’s secretary of state race.
Interim Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, a Baton Rouge Republican, launched his opening 30-second spot Monday, an ad his campaign said is running statewide ahead of the special election.
GOP state Rep. Rick Edmonds, of Baton Rouge, is entering the TV ad competition for secretary of state Tuesday, with a smaller buy focused on cable channels, according to his campaign. Edmonds’ will run four spots that his campaign shared with The Associated Press, including two that hit Ardoin.
In his ad, Ardoin - speaking to the camera and using the slogan “Keep Kyle” - positions himself as an incumbent in a job he’s held only since May when Republican Tom Schedler resigned amid sexual harassment allegations.
Ardoin describes nearly a decade of his “fighting” to protect Louisiana elections. He cites the department’s resistance to letting former President Barack Obama’s administration obtain personal voter data during the back-and-forth over a 2011 lawsuit involving Louisiana’s voter-registration efforts and opposition to getting rid of Louisiana’s voter ID requirements.
He suggests he was central to those debates and doesn’t mention he was working as first assistant to Schedler, rather than in the top position, at the time those disputes were ongoing.
Ardoin also references billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying: “If anyone interferes with Louisiana elections, from Soros to Putin, I’ll fight them all and win.”
Edmonds has one ad focusing on his north Louisiana roots to run in that region and another featuring the support of St. Tammany Parish Republican Sen. Sharon Hewitt to air in her district.
Two other Edmonds spots slam Ardoin, one for contributing thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and the other for pledging not to run for the office and then entering the race anyway. Edmonds describes himself as a “Trump conservative.” In each ad, Edmonds highlights his anti-tax votes in the Legislature.
“I’ll fight just as hard to protect your ballot as I did to protect your wallet,” Edmonds says in one.
Ardoin and Edmonds are among nine contenders in the race to fill the remaining year of Schedler’s term, but only a few will have enough money to purchase TV time to rally support from voters.
Other major Republican candidates include Turkey Creek Mayor Heather Cloud, former state Sen. A.G. Crowe of Pearl River and state Rep. Julie Stokes of Kenner. The major Democrat in the race is Renee Fontenot Free of Baton Rouge, a former top assistant to two secretaries of state and most recently an employee of the attorney general’s office.
The race is expected to be decided in a Dec. 8 runoff.
Ardoin political consultant Lionel Rainey said the campaign’s first TV ad buy is $175,000, but he said the campaign will add to that in the coming days and intends to stay on the air until the election.
“We don’t plan on stopping,” Rainey said.
Edmonds’ TV buy for this week is around $50,000, according to his consultant J Hudson.
Ardoin and Stokes have led in the fundraising battle. Stokes is sitting on the most money in the bank at $514,000, compared to Ardoin’s $208,000, according to the most recent campaign finance reports. But that includes $250,000 in personal cash that Stokes loaned her campaign, and it’s unclear how much of that she’s willing to spend in an advertising push.
___
Follow Melinda Deslatte on Twitter at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte
Please read our comment policy before commenting.