Mary Landrieu Is Defeated by Bill Cassidy
Mary Landrieu Is Defeated by Bill Cassidy in Louisiana Senate Runoff http://youtu.be/oKoGU80CEF8 Republican Bill Cassidy has defeated Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, giving the GOP another ...
By: DeviNS
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Mary Landrieu Is Defeated by Bill Cassidy - Video
TALLAHASSEE The new class of Republican state representatives doesn't fit the national GOP stereotype.
Four of the 19 new members are Hispanic. Two are women.
The GOP has long been more diverse in Florida than in other states, thanks largely to Cuban-Americans from Miami-Dade County. But the party is involved in a broader push to recruit minority and female candidates from across the state.
The effort paid off in 2014. Three of the four new Hispanic members were elected outside Miami-Dade.
"This is the new face of the Republican Party of Florida," said newly elected state Rep. Bob Cortes, an Altamonte Springs Republican who was born in New York but grew up in Puerto Rico. "You're seeing more young, fresh Hispanic Republicans not only run for office, but win."
Cortes and the other new members of the state House will be in Tallahassee on Tuesday for training.
Florida isn't the only place where diverse Republican candidates are winning office. The Republican State Leadership Committee, through an initiative known as the Future Majority Project, invested more than $6million to help elect 42 minority and female candidates to statehouses across the United States in 2014. All told, Republicans won control of 69 of the nation's 99 legislative chambers.
"Conservative values are not gender- or race-specific," said Florida state Rep. Jos Flix Daz, a Miami Republican who sits on the Future Majority Project executive board.
For decades, most Hispanic members of the Florida House and Senate were Republicans of Cuban descent.
That started to change around 2000 when top Democratic fundraiser and former state party chairman Bob Poe made a focused effort to recruit Puerto Ricans to the Democratic Party.
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Republican Florida House newcomers shows diversity
To hear Republicans tell it, President Barack Obama is the leader of a lackluster economy -- and Americans believe them.
The only problem: That view is outdated.
Last weeks Labor Department report showed the economy added 321,000 jobs in November, marking 10 consecutive months in which the number has topped 200,000. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4 percent from a month earlier, the most since June of last year. At the same time, most Americans -- 52 percent in a Gallup poll -- said the economy was getting worse in November, echoing the Republican message.
Theyve done a better job of saying, The economy is not working as well as it should have and elect us and well do a better job, said John Silvia, the chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina.
For years, House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, repeated a simple mantra to needle Obama on the economy: Where are the jobs? To the dismay of some Democrats, the White House has avoided declaring victory in Washingtons rhetorical war over the economy because the slow pace of growth has frustrated those who havent felt the benefits of the recovery.
The jobs report will have some impact on the public perception of the economy, as it should, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Dec. 5. We certainly welcome those signs of strength. We want to make sure that -- that working folks are experiencing those kinds of benefits, too.
There are signs that the public perception of the economy already is shifting. The same Gallup poll showed the smallest gap in a year and a half between Americans who say the economy is getting worse and those who say its getting better. And Boehners Where are the jobs? slogan was absent from the statement he released last week after the new economic data.
While its welcome news that more people found work last month, millions still remain out of work, and middle-class families across the country, including my home state of Ohio, are struggling to get by on wages that havent kept pace with rising costs, he said. The presidents response has been more of the same: the same massive regulations, the same rising premiums, and the same uncertainty for manufacturers and small businesses.
Until this year, Americans frustration was justified, said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America Corp. in New York. Income gains were seen only for the richest, and job growth had yet to meaningfully accelerate.
If you go back a year ago, and in fact if you look at the whole first five years of the economic recovery, the public perception was largely correct, he said. Forecasters in the government -- both in the Obama administration and the Fed -- were much too optimistic coming into the recovery so they sent out this very bullish view which was disappointed. If they had been a little more conservative, it wouldnt feel as bad.
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Republican Message Sinks In Even as Obama Economy Gains Strength
Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., easily defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in a runoff election in Louisiana on Saturday, adding to the GOP's already strong performance in the midterm elections last month.
With all precincts reporting, unofficial results from the Louisiana Secretary of State show Cassidy defeating Landrieu 56 percent to 44 percent.
Cassidy's victory in the runoff election gives Republicans a net pickup of nine seats and a 54 to 46 majority in the Senate beginning next month.
"This victory belongs to you," Cassidy told his supporters after the race was called. "The people of Louisiana voted for a government that serves us but does not tell us what to do."
A three-term congressman, Cassidy spent much of his campaign tying Landrieu to President Barack Obama, who is deeply unpopular in Louisiana.
Landrieu highlighted areas of opposition with the administration, including on the Keystone XL pipeline, but was unable to overcome the Republican wave.
The three-term Senator's fate was seemingly sealed when National Democratic groups stopped running ads, a move Landrieu decried as leaving "a soldier on the field."
Cassidy's victory means the Deep South will only be represented by Republican Senators when the new Congress is sworn in early next year.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ken., who is expected to become Senate Majority Leader, released a statement congratulating Cassidy on his victory and welcoming him to the Senate Republican Conference.
McConnell noted that Cassidy was the sponsor of a House bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The bill fell just short of approval in the Senate.
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Republican Bill Cassidy Wins Louisiana Senate Runoff
WASHINGTON U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, one of the last standing elected Deep South Democrats, lost her bid Saturday for re-election in Louisiana, further clinching Republicans dominance in the Senate following midterm elections last month.
Her loss to Republican rival Bill Cassidy in the runoff vote consolidates a conservative majority in the Southern state, in a region where political winds have shifted strongly in the Republicans favor in recent years.
The vote the last in the Senate contest and the only runoff comes after Democrats suffered a sweeping blow in Nov. 4 legislative elections, which saw energized Republicans reclaim the Senate majority and expand their control in the House of Representatives.
Republicans will hold 54 out of 100 seats in the Senate next year, nine more than they hold now.
Landrieu, who was elected in 1997, said she has no regrets and applauded the work of her party in dealing with various catastrophes, including several hurricanes that battered Louisiana during her tenure.
Tonight, we have so much to be proud of, a record of courage, honesty and integrity and delivering for the state when it mattered the most in some of our darkest hours after Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, and the BP oil spill, she said in New Orleans after her defeat.
The joy has been in the fight, its been a blessing, its been a fight worth waging. Louisiana will always be worth fighting for.
According to final official tallies, Cassidy took about 56 percent of the ballot.
The Republican National Committee applauded Cassidys win, and congratulated voters for making the right decision.
Once again, voters have spoken clearly. They have rejected the Democrat agenda and the Obama-Clinton policies that have produced higher health care costs and job-killing regulations, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement, referring to President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
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Republican Cassidys win in U.S. Senate runoff vote boosts majority