Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is coming to the aid of U.S. Rep. Don Cazayoux (D-La.), who is in a neck-and-neck in a race for re-election on Tuesday.
In a one-minute radio ad which hit the Baton Rouge airwaves on Friday, Obama praises the freshman congressman as being part of "the change we need."
"This is Senator Barack Obama, and I want to urge you to re-elect Congressman Don Cazayoux on Nov. 4," Obama says in the spot. "Louisiana needs Don Cazayoux in Congress to help put our country back on track."
The ad comes as Cazayoux is caught in a three-way race with Republican state Sen. Bill Cassidy and independent candidate Michael Jackson.
Jackson, who is African American, threatens to cut into Cazayoux's base by pulling support from the many black voters who are expected to turn out in large numbers to vote for Obama.
A poll conducted for Cassidy's campaign in late October showed Cazayoux leading the Republican 38 percent to 36 percent, with Jackson picking up 14 percent. A survey conducted for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee earlier in the month showed Cazayoux leading Cassidy 46 percent to 29 percent, with Jackson at 9 percent.
Obama has waded into only a handful of congressional contests this cycle. In October, he appeared in a TV ad voicing his support for Oregon's U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, and last week he was featured in a radio ad for Jim Himes, a Democrat who is challenging Republican Chris Shays in Connecticut's 4th Congressional District, Democrat Gary Peters, who is running in Michigan's 9th Congressional District, and Dan Seals, a Democrat running in Illinois' 10th Congressional District.
Cazayoux's campaign is spending $10,000 to air the Obama ad on African American radio stations in the district, according to a well-placed Democratic source.
Cazayoux is running for his first full term in office after defeating Republican Woody Jenkins in a spring special election to succeed retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Baker.
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