Vitter finds like William F. Knowland before he was born that it is hard to move from the Senate to a governorship. The controlled vote against him was too organized to overcome.
That was when Sen. Knowland and Gov. Goodwin Knight tried to exchange jobs in the worst GOP year for Senate races since the popular vote was instituted, and both lost. Had both stayed put, given 1958, they might’ve lost anyway (to Pat Brown and Clair Engle respectively).
At least if Vitter loses, he keeps his Senate seat.