Final cash push put Vitter over top

[Freddie Stubbs]

1 million was added to coffers in last 3 weeks

Wednesday, December 15, 2004
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON -- More than $1 million was poured into David Vitter's U.S. Senate campaign in the three weeks before the Nov. 2 primary in what the candidate acknowledged Tuesday was a "big, final push" to win the race and avoid a runoff.

With Vitter hovering at 50 percent in pre-election tracking polls, finance records show that national Republican Party leaders leapt at the chance to nudge him over the threshold needed to prevent what would have been a costly and unpredictable contest in December.

"In the last 10 days, we saw the tracking numbers. He was gaining momentum and the Democrats were stagnant," said Heidi Frederickson, spokeswoman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, which spent $1.4 million on television ads for Vitter in the final 13 days of the race. "As this one came down to the wire, we saw it was clearly winnable and we wanted to help him in any way we could."

Vitter won with 51 percent of the vote against three major Democrats, earning him the distinction of being the first Republican ever popularly elected to a U.S. Senate seat from Louisiana.

more: http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/washington/index.ssf?/base/news-0/110309559120830.xml

[Swamp Rat]

1. They had to make it look like a close race.