Landry wins 3rd Congressional District GOP runoff in landslide
by Bill Barrow - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

New Iberia lawyer Jeff Landry easily defeated former Louisiana House Speaker Hunt Downer on Saturday to secure the Republican nomination in the 3rd Congressional District party runoff. (U)ltimately it was Landry, 39, who took advantage of being a relative newcomer to politics, positioning himself as an outsider running against a Washington, D.C.-culture that is particularly unpopular in this midterm election year. In the process, Landry amassed endorsements from the Louisiana Republican Party and 11 out of the 13 parish GOP committees in the district, an uncommon show of solidarity from party officials who generally sit out primaries to avoid intraparty conflict. Landry also enjoyed aid from the Louisiana Tea Party, a Baton Rouge-based group that is one of several of the anti-tax, small-government organizations around the state. The group launched a "Down with Downer" initiative before the primary, complete with online ads and e-mail messages to several thousand activists. After the primary, the group added its formal endorsement. While it's difficult to measure the tea party effect, the fact that the organization backed the same candidate as the traditional GOP power structure underscores Landry's advantage; the dynamic also offers a stark contrast to GOP races in other states, where a clear tea party candidate took on a party establishment candidate.