Qualifying for next year's governor's race is 13 months away, so will we see Republicans who plan to challenge Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards announce their candidacy soon? Political analyst Clancy Dubos says while names from the Republican Party have been thrown around, there is no absolute answer as to when to officially announce a candidacy.

“There is no hard fast rule as to when someone has to declare expect for qualifying, but typically people announce sometime before that,” said Dubos.

US Senator John Kennedy, US Representative Ralph Abraham, Attorney General Jeff Landry and state senator Sharon Hewitt have been mentioned as possible candidates.

Dubos doesn’t foresee anyone making any announcements until next year.

“In the case of someone like Senator Kennedy who already has a very high profile, he could afford to wait until relatively late in the game,” said Dubos.

Earlier this year, Edwards reported having more than five-million dollars in his campaign war chest. Dubos expects the governor to keep raising money for what will be a difficult re-election campaign bid.

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