Who is John Bel Edwards?

John Bel Edwards is an American politician and attorney serving as the 56th governor of Louisiana since 2016. Edwards is running for the Democratic primary elections in Louisiana, which are scheduled on November 8, this year. If he wins, he will be running against Republican leader John Neel Kennedy in the Louisiana Senate election, which is scheduled on December 10, 2022. 

Edwards was first appointed to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 2007. In the second round of the 2015 governor’s race, he defeated right-wing U.S. Senator, David Vitter. Edwards was re-elected as the governor of Louisiana in 2019, making him the first Democrat to do so since Edwin Edwards in 1975.

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Who is John Bel Edwards?    

John Bel Edwards was born on September 16, 1966, in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana to Sheriff Frank Jr. and Dora Jean Edwards. He was the seventh out of eight children. He grew up in Amite, a rural town in Tangipahoa Parish. 

Edward met First Lady Donna Edwards while they were both students at Amite High School. Governor Edwards graduated at the top of his class from the US Military Academy at West Point. The couple got married in 1989 and were blessed with three children- Samantha Bel, Sarah Ellen, and John Miller.

As a cadet, he earned a degree from Airborne School and served as Vice-Chairman of the committee that implements the West Point Honor Code.  In 1988, the governor graduated from West Point and was commissioned as the second lieutenant in the United States Army.

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Edwards retired from the Army with the rank of captain after commanding a parachute infantry regiment in the 82nd airborne. He graduated with a law degree from Louisiana State University before practising as a civil lawyer in Amite.

Louisiana voters re-elected John Bel Edwards to a four-year term on November 16, 2019. Gov. Edwards was sworn in as the 56th Governor of Louisiana on January 13, 2020.

He expanded Medic-aid coverage to 430,000 of the state’s working poor. He also reduced Louisiana’s Medicaid uninsured rate from 24 per cent to 10%. Gov. Edwards took the oath of office with the highest budget deficit in Louisiana history.