BATON ROUGE, Louisiana--Republican John Neely Kennedy, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, won a runoff election in Louisiana on Saturday against Democrat Foster Campbell in a race that gives the Republicans a 52-seat majority in the chamber.
Campbell told his supporters in the state capital of Baton Rouge that he had called Kennedy to congratulate him on his victory.
Kennedy, the state treasurer and the favourite going into the runoff, had slightly less than 61 percent of the vote with all 3,904 precincts reporting, according to the state Secretary of State's office. Turnout was relatively low.
Kennedy, who said he will not move to Washington D.C. after a campaign spent railing against "insiders," told supporters "I'd rather drink weed-killer than be anywhere else tonight," a reference to a widely reported campaign quote in which he said he "would rather drink weed-killer than support Obamacare."
Kennedy will fill the seat held by outgoing Republican Senator David Vitter, who is retiring.
In conceding, Campbell vowed "I'll never stop fighting for working families, I'll never stop working for what's right."
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, congratulated Kennedy on his victory. "I look forward to working with him to secure additional funding for flood relief, to make long term investments in our infrastructure and to bring Louisiana's federal tax dollars home to help our people," Edwards said in a statement.
