David Duke has had little presence on the campaign trail and has raised little money so far. | AP Photo David Duke qualifies for Louisiana Senate debate

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has qualified for a televised debate in Louisiana's Senate race after a new poll showed him drawing 5 percent of the vote.

Duke, a white supremacist, announced he was running late this summer, saying GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump had inspired him and drawn more followers to his cause. Other Republicans in the state have disavowed him and the Republican National Committee and Louisiana GOP explored booting him out of the party.


Raycom Media, which owns four television stations in the state, commissioned a poll to determine who would qualify for the Nov. 2 debate, and Duke met the 5 percent threshold, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. Dillard University, a historically black university in New Orleans, is hosting the debate.

Louisiana hold its all-party primary on Election Day. A candidate can win the seat with a majority of the vote, but the Senate seat looks almost certain to go to a Dec. 10 runoff between the two top vote-getters that day. GOP State Treasurer John Kennedy led the poll with 24 percent of the vote, followed by Democratic Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell with 19 percent and Democratic attorney Caroline Fayard with 12 percent. Republican congressmen Charles Boustany and John Fleming earned 12 and 11 percent of the vote, respectively.

Duke has had little presence on the campaign trail and has raised little money so far. He previously served as a state representative in the late 1980s and lost the 1991 gubernatorial election.

Mason-Dixon conducted the poll of 625 registered voters from Oct. 17 to Oct. 19. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.