INCUMBENT: “Blade” Morrish (Republican)

DESCRIPTION: Senate District 25 is located in southwest Louisiana, and it contains all of Cameron and Jefferson Davis Parishes. It also contains all but the northern and eastern fringes of Acadia Parish, and it includes the southern (and suburban) portions of Calcasieu Parish.

DISTRICT MAP:

District Map

RED/BLUE RATING (using 2008, 2012, and 2014 elections): 70% Republican

JMCEL’s SUMMARY: While Senate District 25 appears to be a rural district, 42% of its vote is actually cast in Calcasieu Parish (i.e., the Lake Charles suburbs), and those precincts have for some time been the Republican anchor of the district, while historically, the rural parishes have voted Democratic. That has begun to change, however, and across the district, Republicans have gained strength in Presidential, statewide, and legislative elections.

But while the Calcasieu precincts cast over 40% of the district vote, the path to victory here for the last two state senators has been from the state House seat containing Jefferson Davis and a handful of Calcasieu Parish precincts along the Jefferson Davis Parish line. The last state senator was Gerald Theunissen, who successfully sought a promotion to the state senate when the seat opened up in 1996, and while he was originally elected as a Democrat, he switched to the Republican Party several years later. He was re-elected without opposition, although he was term limited out in 2008.

In the 2007 race to succeed him, two term limited legislators and a Lake Charles businessman sought the seat. The winner in the runoff was someone who had followed the same legislative career path as Sen. Theunissen: (then) state representative “Blade” Morrish, who succeeded Theunissen in the House and in 2005 changed to the Republican Party. And like Theunissen, Morrish was term limited in the House, so it was natural for him to seek the vacant Senate seat. His victory in the runoff was clinched by consolidating the Republican base: he swept both his home base in Jefferson Davis Parish and the Lake Charles suburban vote (those precincts favored the Republican “also ran” in the primary). Redistricting made minor changes to the district, and Senator Morrish was re-elected without opposition in 2011. He is allowed to serve one more term, and given the district’s tendency to re-elect its legislators, he should be fine in a district that gave Mitt Romney 76% and Bill Cassidy 73% of the vote.