Strong GOP showing in La. House races

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BATON ROUGE, La., Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Sen. David Vitter, R-La., was re-elected by a wide margin over Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon Tuesday and Republicans also dominated the House races.

The Senate race was called in Vitter's favor by NBC, which gave him 57 percent of the voted to Melancon's 38 percent.

While running for re-election as a mainstream conservative, Vitter also had his hands full this summer with the impact of the BP oil spill on Louisiana and was a vocal opponent of the federal government's moratorium on offshore drilling permits. He won despite a personal scandal in 2007 in which he apologized publicly after his phone number turned up in the phone records of a prostitution ring in Washington.

Five of the seven House races in Louisiana went to Republicans. A notable exception was in the second district where Democratic state Rep. Cedric Richmond trounced first-term Republican Joseph Cao with 65 percent of the vote to 33 percent.

Two Republican incumbents, Charles Boustany and Rodney Alexander, ran unopposed.