Gerald Long - Election To The State Senate

Election To The State Senate

In the 2007 campaign, Long defeated the Democratic State Representative Thomas Taylor Townsend, a nephew and law partner of former State Senator Donald G. Kelly of Natchitoches. Townsend had unseated Jimmy Long in the 1999 jungle primary for the Louisiana House. Townsend, who ran to the political "left" of Long, did not seek a third term in the House but instead sought the open Senate seat vacated by his cousin, Mike Smith, a businessman in Winnfield. Long procured 20,609 votes (54 percent) to Townsend's 17,699 (46 percent). Long won five of the six parishes in the district, having lost only in Natchitoches, the home of both candidates. He even won in Red River Parish, one of only two north Louisiana parishes that did not support the successful Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bobby Jindal, in the October 20 primary.

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