Jimmy Wilson - Running Again in 1980

Running Again in 1980

Rebuffed by Congress, Wilson announced on April 30, 1980, Statehood Day in Louisiana, that he would challenge Leach in the 1980 nonpartisan blanket primary. A Shreveport Journal poll showed Wilson with a slim lead at the time in a potential re-run of a race against Leach. There was, however, a large bloc of uncommitted voters. Wilson said that he expected to raise and spend $500,000 for the second race because national Republicans had again targeted the Fourth District as one of 35 in the nation where the GOP stood a chance of winning a Democratic seat.

Wilson said in his announcement for the 1980 race that he had gone "as far as we could in the Congress with the vote-fraud problems. I think it's now to be left up to the voters of the Fourth District to decide if there was voter fraud in the election. That will happen this fall. ... The Democrats have allowed convicted felons to serve in Congress. The Democrats wouldn't pay any attention to our forty names of bought votes. Then on top of that, Brilab . That makes me think that people are fed up with wthat kind of thing in Congress."

In addition to Wilson and Leach, Roemer also ran again in 1980. So did State Representative Forrest Dunn of Shreveport, a furniture store owner known for fiscal conservatism and frank expression of ideas who had supported President Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976. Dunn's entry was believed to have attracted the same kinds of voters who might have otherwise preferred the Republican Wilson.

Another entry was the moderate-to-liberal and highly ambitious Democratic state Senator Foster L. Campbell, Jr., of Bossier Parish, a former educator who had succeeded the conservative Harold Montgomery in the District 36 Senate seat in 1976. Near the end of the first phase of the campaign, Campbell had questioned Roemer's commitment to the Second Amendment.

Former Democratic State Senator Cecil Kay Carter, Jr., who served Caddo Parish from 1972 to 1976, threw his hat into the ring as well.

In the September 1980 primary, Leach led with 35,847 votes (28.9 percent). Roemer was second with 33,049 (26.8 percent). Wilson finished third with 29,992 (24.4 percent). Campbell polled 14,666 votes (11.9 percent), and Dunn received 8,208 ballots (6.7 percent). Carter ran last with 1,329 (1 percent). As predicted by some Republicans, Dunn polled more than enough votes to keep Wilson from a first- or second-place primary finish, presuming that Dunn voters' second choice in most cases would have been Wilson.

After he was eliminated from the race, Wilson endorsed Roemer.