The final Senate race of the 2016 election cycle comes to a close Saturday night, as Louisianans choose between Republican state treasurer John Kennedy and Democrat Foster Campbell.
Saturday’s contest comes after no one candidate captured a majority of the votes in November, a requirement of state law to avoid a runoff. The field originally had two dozen candidates including former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
The top two vote finishers were Kennedy with 25% of the vote and Campbell who had 17.5% of the vote.
The seat is considered safely Republican in the deep red southern state, and Republicans have already secured their majority in the Senate next year.
President-Elect Donald Trump held a rally Friday in the Baton Rouge, asking his supporters to back Kennedy in the election, calling him “a tax cutter” and “true fighter.”
“This is an amazing state and tomorrow we need you to go to the polls and send John Kennedy to the united states senate and that’s why I’m down here,” he said. “He’s a great guy.”
“We need John in Washington not only for the vote, we need for leadership and everything else but if you go there we’ll win,” Trump added. “Kennedy is a proven leader who’s balanced — which is amazing — 16 budgets, returned millions of dollars to taxpayers.”
Trump’s running mate Mike Pence also campaigned for Kennedy earlier this week.
“By electing John Kennedy your next senator, you’re going to put an exclamation point at the end of a great American victory in 2016,” the vice-president elect told a rally, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Incumbent Republican Sen. David Vitter decided not to run for re-election after losing the 2015 gubernatorial race to Democrat John Bel Edwards.