Vitter, Melancon easily win parties’ primaries

By Erik Sanzenbach
St. Tammany News
Published on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 12:24 AM CDT

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U.S. Sen. David Vitter and Congressman Charlie Melancon coasted to easy victories in yesterday’s primary election for U.S. Senate.

Incumbent Vitter had no trouble getting the Republican Party nomination over two other candidates with 88 percent of the vote. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Vitter had 85,179 votes across the state as opposed to his next closest rival, Chet Taylor who only got 7 percent of the vote with 6,838. Coming in a distant third was Nick Accardo with 5,221 votes or 5 percent of the vote.

It was pretty much the same story on the Democratic side with Melancon overwhelming his two rivals with 71 percent of the vote or 77,702 votes. Trailing far behind in second place was Neeson Chauvin Jr. with 18 percent or 19,507 and bringing up third was Cary Deaton with 12,842 or 12 percent of the vote.

VITTER AND MELANCON

For the first time in Louisiana history, the Libertarian Party was able to participate in the Congressional primaries, and it was a much tighter race than either the Republican or Democratic races. Randall T. Hayes won his party’s nomination with 62 percent, or 1,529 votes, and Mandeville resident, Anthony Gentile came in second with 950 votes or 38 percent.

In Congressional District 2, there was no primary, because incumbent, Congressman Steve Scalise, Republican, Democrat Myron Katz of New Orleans, and Independent candidate Arden Wells from Ponchatoula were the only candidates from each party to qualify for the election.

All the candidates for the U.S. Senate and Congressional District 2 will meet in the Nov. 2 general election.

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