chokkicx/iStock

chokkicx/iStock(NEW ORLEANS) — In the Deep South, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards seeks to fend off a challenge from his GOP rival, who is backed by President Donald Trump, as voters head to the polls on Saturday.

The runoff election comes amid a looming impeachment investigation, that has seeped into the state’s off-year contest — nationalizing the last gubernatorial election of 2019.

Trump has made stops in the state at least three times for back-to-back rallies in a little over a month, as he tests the bounds of his strength to sway an election outcome in Republicans’ favor — as the party grapples with concerns over ceding more ground in a ruby red state.

GOP candidate Eddie Rispone, an entrepreneur and native of northern Baton Rouge, is counting on the president’s popularity to offset his struggles as a political outsider — who began his bid with little state-wide name recognition up against the incumbent — and carry him over the finish line Saturday as Trump often claims he does in competitive races.

The president has injected himself into the race, testing his influence to deliver another GOP victory as he did in neighboring Mississippi last week, but failed to do in Kentucky last week.

Trump pleaded with his loyal supporters in Louisiana on Thursday, asking them to give him a win after failing to save Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin in last week’s election.

“So Trump took a loss, so you got to give me a big win please,” he told the crowd. “The next step to victory begins on Saturday. Your vote on Saturday is your chance to show the radical left Washington Democrats that Louisiana rejects their extremism and their corruption. You will not allow your voice to be silenced, you will not allow your vote to be canceled.”

Despite the state siding with Trump by 20 points in 2016 over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Pelican state elected a Democrat in 2015 when Edwards defeated David Vitter, a scandal-tarred Republican seeking to follow the unpopular Bobby Jindal, 56% to 44%.

Edwards, a rare Democratic southern governor, is relying on his winning 2015 playbook, positioning himself as a moderate Democrat with conservative stances on guns and abortion and touting his record as a West Point graduate and former officer in the U.S. Army. The Democrat is also aiming to focusing his re-election campaign on his investments in education and the economy, and his successful efforts with Medicaid expansion throughout his governorship.

“The progress that we have made is still at stake. It took all of us to put Louisiana back on a path to prosperity, but it only takes one person putting Washington style politics over the people of Louisiana to reverse everything that we have accomplished together,” Edwards said last month on the night of the primary.

“We are not going back. But that is exactly what Eddie Rispone would have us do,” he continued. “He wants to put us right back on the path that led us straight into the ditch.”

Rispone, who has largely self-funded his campaign, is attempting to align himself in lockstep with the president.

“We need a pro-Trump conservative, an outsider, someone with serious business skills, someone that’s not beholden to special interests,” Rispone told the crowd at the Monroe rally earlier this month. “Someone that’s got backbone to go against the status quo, someone like Trump.”

In an effort to nationalize the race around the fight over impeachment, Rispone has repeatedly tried to cast his opponent as “a radical liberal Democrat,” invoking rhetoric Trump frequently uses in a state that heavily leans red.

Despite Rispone’s name being on the ballot, the GOP candidate reiterated his pitch Thursday night in Bossier City, as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Trump, suggesting that a vote for him is also one for the president.

“We have to get rid of John Bel Edwards, and we need your help,” Rispone said at the third rally. “This is bigger than Louisiana.”

Edwards was forced into a runoff last month, despite winning the most votes in the jungle primary — since he received 47% to Rispone’s 27%, who split the vote with another Republican in the contest, Ralph Abraham, but failed to secure a majority of the vote to win outright.

For Saturday’s runoff, turnout is already up from the Oct. 12 primary.

More than 480,000 voters opted to cast their ballots early, surpassing the primary’s early vote total by over 100,000, according to the Monroe News Star.

The polls close Saturday at 9 p.m. eastern time.

Copyright © 2019, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.