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 Republican Representative Bill Cassidy is running against
Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu, the top Democrat on the Senate
Energy Committee, and has a comfortable lead in polls.
If he wins, he would be the ninth Republican to capture a previously
Democratic seat. His victory would give Republicans 54 seats in the
100-member Senate, enough for a majority but not the 60 seats needed
to avoid the tactical blocking procedure known as a filibuster. This
means that Republicans, who also control the U.S. House of
Representatives, would have to work with Democrats to pass most
legislation.
The runoff is being held because no candidate garnered more than 50
percent of the vote on Election Day. A RealClearPolitics average of
polls in recent weeks shows Cassidy leading by more than 17 points.
 Last month, Landrieu tried to prove her energy industry credentials
by pushing a vote in the Senate to force approval of the planned
Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
But the vote failed.
Landrieu has turned to sharp personal criticisms of Cassidy.
"I'm running against a guy who is hiding," Landrieu told supporters
days before Saturday's vote, castigating Cassidy for not
participating in more debates. "And now we know why - because he was
double-dipping at the taxypayer expense."
In allegations that surfaced on Louisiana political blogs and that
Landrieu has seized on, Cassidy, a doctor, is accused of falsely
filling out some timesheets and failing to file others for a
part-time Louisiana State University hospital job after he joined
Congress in 2009.
Cassidy has denied the allegations of wrongdoing and said they are
misguided. His campaign has said they are a desperate attempt to
discredit him.
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A Louisiana State University spokesman says the school is reviewing
the case.
Cassidy supporters have focused on tying Landrieu to President
Barack Obama, who is unpopular in the state. One recent 30-second
anti-Landrieu video released by Ending Spending Action Fund featured
nine separate images of Obama.
Landrieu's struggle mirrors that of two other southern Democratic
senators defeated in the midterms: Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Kay
Hagan of North Carolina. Like much of the U.S. South, Louisiana has
become much more conservative in the 18 years since Landrieu was
first elected to the Senate.
(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti in Washington and Jonathan
Kaminsky in New Orleans; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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