Greg Hilburn

The (Monroe, La.) News-Star

BATON ROUGE, La. — Republican John Kennedy will be Louisiana's next U.S. Senator after winning Saturday's election against Democrat Foster Campbell.

Kennedy won with 63% of the vote to Campbell's 37%.

"This campaign was about changing the status quo," Kennedy told supporters in his victory speech.

He pledged to work with Campbell and Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who supported Campbell. "I'll be a senator for all the people," Kennedy said.

It was Kennedy's third bid for the job. He first ran as a Democrat in 2004, a race won by Republican Sen. David Vitter, who Kennedy will replace, and then as a Republican in 2008, losing to former Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat.

Kennedy, a front-runner from the jump, pressed his advantage down the stretch with the help of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who both headlined rallies for Kennedy in Louisiana within the span of a week.

Trump and Pence emphasized that they needed Kennedy in Washington to widen the Republicans' slim majority in the 100-member Senate. Kennedy's election gives Republicans 52 members in the chamber.

Senators pay tribute to Vice President Joe Biden

Though Kennedy's first two attempts at the Senate came up short, voters elected him as their state treasurer five times, the first in 1999.

During his tenure as treasurer, Kennedy has crafted an image with voters as their fiscal watchdog.

He wrote regular columns published by many newspapers throughout the state criticizing what he saw as wasteful spending by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and Democrat Edwards, the current governor.

Campbell, an elected member of the Public Service Commission since 2002, had hoped to replicate the magic captured by Edwards, who beat Vitter in last year's governor's race to become the only statewide elected Democrat in an increasingly red state.

The Bossier Parish rancher who served in the state Senate 27 years before winning his PSC seat echoed many of the populist messages elevated by Trump, but Louisiana voters weren't willing to send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate.

Campbell will continue to serve on the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities.

Voters settled Saturday's election after sifting through the largest candidate field in Louisiana political history.

Twenty-four candidates — among them two sitting congressmen and former Ku Klux Klan wizard David Duke — qualified to run for the seat.

Kennedy and Campbell emerged from the Nov. 8 heat, known as a "jungle primary" because all of the candidates, no matter their party, are lumped together on one ballot.

That gave voters a traditional choice in a runoff election — Democrat versus Republican — in a state that has shown its election of Edwards was an anomaly rather than a trend.

Follow Greg Hilburn on Twitter: @GregHilburn1