A new Rasmussen poll on the Louisiana U.S. Senate race shows an increasingly lopsided campaign between incumbent Republican David Vitter and Democrat challenger Charlie Melancon – with a nearly impossible mountain to climb for the congressman.

Vitter leads by a 53-35 count, a comfortable 18 percent margin. But that’s not the worst of the difficulty Melancon faces.

The poll finds that Vitter boasts a shiny 62 percent approval rating, which might make him the most popular of Louisiana’s elected statewide officials. It’s clear that the personal attacks made on Vitter by the Louisiana Democrat Party and the Melancon campaign aren’t working, and attempting to dredge up personal baggage of Vitter’s has been Melancon’s grand strategy for months.

Only nine percent of the 500 poll respondents were undecided. The poll was conducted on June 24, which came after revelations that a Vitter aide resigned under a cloud arising from a guilty plea in a domestic violence case. The conventional wisdom had it that Vitter’s stock was about to plunge as a result of the incident, which might occasion a late-coming GOP challenge to Vitter. Today’s release indicates no such fall is imminent.

Vitter leads Melancon by 30 points among male voters, which isn’t a surprise. But he also leads Melancon by 11 points among female voters.

The poll finds that Louisiana is extremely hostile territory to Democrats at present. Just 40 percent of the state’s voters approve of President Obama, while 58 percent disapprove. And 31 percent say they are members of the Tea Party movement, which would make the state one of the largest Tea Party strongholds in America. Vitter is destroying Melancon with the Tea Party crowd; some 83 percent of Tea Party identifiers back Vitter.

The issues aren’t friendly to Democrats, either. A repeal of Obamacare is favored by 67 percent of those polled, and 58 percent say they strongly favor repeal. Also, some 59 percent also say Louisiana ought to have an immigration law like the one Arizona passed earlier this year.