(The Center Square) — The Louisiana 4th Congressional District race has one heavy favorite and one underfunded challenger.
While most congressional races in Tuesday’s election favor the incumbent, this one is as lopsided as a competition can get. While the 6th Congressional District has five candidates and three legitimate contenders, this one has two candidates with one holding the most important role in the House of Representatives.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La, has represented the westernmost district in the Pelican State since 2017. In October 2023, Johnson was elected Speaker of the House after they voted to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Ca.
Johnson represents a heavily GOP-leaning district that stretches from Shreveport and Bossier City in the northwestern part of the state to DeRidder and Opelousas north of Lafayette.
Johnson won his first term in 2016 after serving in the state House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017. In his last election in 2022, he won by default with no challengers rising to contest his seat.
This time around he has one Republican challenger, Joshua Morott, who is a long-term substitute teacher in Slagle and touts similar values to former President Donald Trump. He even put the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again” on his campaign page.
Johnson also supports the Republican presidential candidate on his campaign site with pictures of them together and reasons why he’s better than the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
While Morott mostly agrees with Johnson, he’s running to his right. Morott wants to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and give that power to states. He also wants to repeal Obamacare along with closing and defending the nation’s borders.
He also wants to stop excessive spending and implementing term limits at all levels of government.
With Johnson’s campaign, he chose to focus more on his accomplishments. He spoke about his family and his time in politics and as a constitutional law attorney. Votes and donations are a clear top priority when you look at his site.
A previous story from The Center Square highlighted that Johnson is in the campaign finance lead. It’s no small gap, and it’s only grown since then. As of October 16th, the Federal Elections Commission data shows Johnson has received more than $17 million in campaign finance receipts, the most in the state by far, and has spent almost $16.5 million cash on hand.
Meanwhile, Morott has not received or spent a dime in campaign finance money.
