“With just seven months until Louisiana’s election for governor, Shawn Wilson (D) officially entered the gubernatorial race Monday, becoming the first prominent Democrat to seek the seat later this year,” the AP reports.

“The former head of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, who appears to be the only high-profile Democrat that will run for the state’s top government post in October, announced his candidacy on social media and released an official campaign video Monday morning.”

Cook Political Report: “Attorney General Jeff Landry is off to an early lead in the GOP primary, and Republicans start with the edge in being able to flip this open seat. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards has been a unicorn, and finding another candidate who can build a unique coalition like he did may not be possible.”

“We are being cautious with a Lean Republican rating until the field fully begins to take shape. However, that rating could move further in the GOP’s direction over the next few months.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) “said he won’t run for governor of Louisiana this year, which is likely to trigger a flood of on-the-fence candidates to jump into the race,” the Lafayette Daily Advertiser reports.

Said Kennedy: “I have looked into my heart and decided to remain in the Senate and not to run for governor. At this juncture, I just think I can help my state and my country more in the Senate.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) ended speculation that he might run for governor in Louisiana this morning, announcing that he would stay in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) told reporters that he has made a decision about running for Lousiana governor and will announce it publicly later this week, the New Orleans Times Picayune reports.

WRKF: “The statement comes one day after his Senate colleague John Kennedy (R-LA) said he is ‘seriously considering’ mounting his own gubernatorial bid and released his own polling data showing that he would be an early favorite in the race.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) confirmed that he’s interested in running for governor in 2023 to replace term-limited Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), following reporting from the Baton Rouge Advocate that said he’s seriously considering a bid, Politico reports.

Greg Sargent: “John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, won reelection as governor of deep-red Louisiana on Saturday by a comfortable 40,000 votes — after President Trump had repeatedly campaigned for his Republican opponent. Worse for Trump, this came after he positively begged voters to support the Republican, casting it as a referendum on himself by saying: ‘You got to give me a big win, please.'”

“Yet Edwards won, in large part, by also stressing his implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion in the state during his first term. Indeed, Edwards’s lead pollster, Zac McCrary, told me during an interview that no single issue was more important in driving the governor’s victory.”

“All of which underscores an important truism about the Trump era, one often neglected by pundits: A key reason Democrats have been racking up wins in Trump country may be the president’s embrace of conventional GOP plutocratic economics.”

“Our shared love for Louisiana is always more important than the partisan differences that sometimes divide us. And as for the president: God bless his heart.”

— Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), quoted by the New York Times in his victory speech last night.

The polls in Louisiana’s race for governor close at 9 p.m. ET.

Leave your reactions in the comments as election results are tallied.

New York Times: “The crucial cultural dividing line in Louisiana has always been north-south. Those who live in north Louisiana are mostly Protestant, speak with a familiar Southern twang and, in the modern era, voted heavily Republican. But rural South Louisiana is more Catholic, the accent is like nothing else (as anyone knows listening to the L.S.U. football coach Ed Orgeron on Saturdays) and the politics has tended more Democratic.”

“Yet as Louisiana voters go to the polls Saturday to decide the highly competitive runoff for governor between Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, and Eddie Rispone, his Republican challenger, the traditional regional divide is giving way to an urban versus rural political chasm that is shaping elections across the country. Republicans are dominating the countryside across much of the state, while Democrats are running up large margins in the cities in both the north and south while gaining strength in the suburbs.”

Politico: “The Republican National Committee is pouring another $1 million into the Louisiana governor’s race ahead of Saturday’s runoff — a move that comes amid mounting GOP concerns about losing a second major election in a conservative state in as many weeks.”

“Trump had bet that a GOP sweep in three gubernatorial races this fall would project political strength in the face of impeachment. But after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s apparent defeat in Kentucky last week, and with Rispone locked in a neck-and-neck race, the president is facing the possibility of losing two out of three.”

A new Mason-Dixon poll in Louisiana finds Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) with a slim lead over challenger Eddie Rispone (R) in this weekend’s runoff election, 48% to 46%.

JMC Analytics notes that early voting in the Louisiana governor’s race, which ended last night, was the highest ever for a non-presidential election.

Key takeaway: “Whatever the turnout levels are from election cycle to election cycle, black voters (who are almost unanimously Democratic) tend to show up in greater numbers on the last day. But very rarely do they turn out to the extent that they did yesterday: a whopping 40% of the last day early voters were black (blacks represent 31% of Louisiana’s registered voters). As further illustration of how unprecedented black participation this strong is, in the 116 days of available data for in person early voting going all the way back to 2008, only four other times has the black early vote as a percentage of the total vote ever hit 40% (and three of those times were in 2008, when Barack Obama was first elected).”

“Donald Trump couldn’t save Matt Bevin in Kentucky. Now, the pressure is on the president to avoid a second black eye in Louisiana next week,” Politico reports.

“Trump is thrusting himself into the state’s gubernatorial contest: He rallied there on Wednesday evening for Republican candidate Eddie Rispone, who is trying to unseat Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, and will make another visit two days before the Nov. 16 election. The president is also expected to record get-out-the-vote videos and robocalls, and on Wednesday morning he called into a popular Louisiana morning radio show to talk about the race.”

“Trump also plans to attend the Louisiana State vs. Alabama college football game on Saturday. Though the game is Alabama, the marquee match-up is expected to draw wide viewership among Louisianans. The blitz underscores the importance of the race to the president.”

A new JMC Analytics and Polling survey in Louisiana shows Gov. Jon Bel Edwards (D) leading Eddie Rispone (R) in the race for governor, 48% to 46% with 6% undecided.

Said pollster John Couvillon: “Given that the undecided percentage is down to 6% — 4% if ‘leaners’ are excluded — this is now an election where turnout matters a lot more than persuasion, particularly with early voting less than a week away.”

A new ALG Research (D) poll in Louisiana finds Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) leading challenger Eddie Rispone (R) in the November 16 gubernatorial runoff election, 52% to 36%.

Inside Elections: Key takeaways from the primary election.

“President Trump loomed large over Louisiana’s governor’s race a day after Gov. John Bel Edwards fell short of winning Saturday’s primary outright, forcing him to face businessman Eddie Rispone in next month’s runoff,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

“About 200,000 more people voted in the primary compared to the 2015 runoff election that Edwards won, an increase of about 17%. An analysis on Sunday by Jim Kitchens, who was the governor’s pollster four years ago and was an independent consultant for his campaign this year, indicated that most of the 200,000 were white rural voters who voted for Rispone or Abraham.”