BATON ROUGE — Louisiana’s Republican leaders have wanted to oust Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards ever since his long-shot victory in 2015, but the candidate field shaping up years later doesn’t feature the prominent political figures once predicted.
The biggest-name GOP contenders all have bypassed the 2019 governor’s race, culminating with U.S. Sen. John Kennedy’s announcement last week that he would skip a gubernatorial bid and stay in Washington.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, the dream candidate of many Republicans, never flirted with the governor’s race publicly, even as people tried to keep his name in speculation. Scalise, too, prefers to remain ...