We’ve written that lately it’s beginning to look like Jeff Landry is running away with the Louisiana governor’s race based on momentum, and that seems like it’s only accelerating.

Yesterday, for example, Landry picked up a bellwether endorsement of sorts from the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association…

Today, Jeff Landry received the endorsement of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association (LSA) in his race for Governor of Louisiana. The LSA is a bipartisan organization, composed of Louisiana’s 64 sheriffs and nearly 14,000 deputy sheriffs, established to represent Louisiana’s chief law enforcement officers across the state.

“Members of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association proudly stand with Jeff Landry because of his lifelong support of law enforcement. From his earliest years of experience as a sheriff’s deputy, to his consistent continued efforts to be tough on violent crime, sheriffs are honored to partner with him for a safer Louisiana,” said Sheriff Doug Hebert, President of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association.

“I am extremely humbled by the support of the Louisiana Sheriffs’ Association. The sheriffs and their employees are community heroes who put their lives on the line everyday to keep us safe. As a former police officer and sheriff’s deputy, I understand the difficulties faced by those in law enforcement and I will always stand by and support them. As Governor, I look forward to working closely with our sheriffs to make Louisiana a safer state in which to live, work, and raise a family,” said Jeff Landry.

It’s pretty rare when the sheriffs pick somebody who isn’t almost guaranteed to win. Four years ago they backed John Bel Edwards, which was what they also did in 2015. But those endorsements both came in late September, when it looked like Edwards was going to run up a big number in the primary election and stand as a commanding favorite in the runoff. The two election cycles before that, the sheriffs backed Bobby Jindal.

When they endorse, it’s a reflection of who they think will win rather than whether that candidate is a real ally of theirs.

And just after that endorsement, we saw why. Nexstar Media, which owns a host of TV stations around the state, put out the results of a poll they’d commissioned Emerson College to run on the governor’s race, and Landry blew away the competition…

A Nexstar Media poll conducted by Emerson College Polling shows that Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry holds comfortable advantage over the large field of candidates early in the campaign for Louisiana Governor.

The survey shows that Landry has 39.7% support over the field in the Oct. 14 primary, in which 16 candidates are vying to succeed Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. Edwards has a 39% job approval in his last term, while 43% disapprove of the job he has done as Governor.

Poll results showed Landry, a Republican from Broussard, led Baton Rouge Democrat Shawn Wilson, who placed second with 22.3% of the vote. Republicans Stephen “Wags” Waguespack and Sharon Hewitt each polled 5.1%, with 17.5% undecided.

Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said Landry is within striking distance of winning the election outright on Oct. 14.

“In the nonpartisan jungle primary in Louisiana where a candidate needs 50% support to avoid a general election, Landry is within reach of that threshold while Wilson is trying to force a run-off,” Kimball said. “With 18% of voters undecided, a run-off election hangs in the balance.”

Of those polled, 90.8% said they were “very likely” to vote for governor, 4.4% said they were “somewhat likely,” 2.7% said “not too likely” and 2.2% said they were “not at all likely.”

Emerson also polled the Attorney General and Secretary of State races, but none of the candidates in either has even made it into the teens, which is an indication that both races will break late and they can’t really be handicapped yet.

But Landry sitting close to 40 percent in the poll is now beginning to look unbeatable.

Wilson, at 22 percent despite being the only major Democrat in the race, clearly doesn’t excite his voters. If there was a Republican gaining any momentum and perhaps creeping into double digits we might say that the real race would be for second place, and that the possibility exists that a second Republican could potentially sop up all the anti-Landry vote and win with it in the runoff.

But Schroder and Waguespack are still locked in a death-struggle at five percent apiece, and neither can get any momentum.

Waguespack is now running ads calling himself an outsider.

We actually like the ad, as everything he’s saying in it is what the state needs. But an outsider? He’s run the state’s most prominent lobbying organization for a decade, and before that he was the chief of staff to Bobby Jindal. Wags is great, and he’d make a good governor, but you can’t sell him as an outsider. It comes off a little like Eddie Rispone’s ads four years ago when Rispone was claiming outsider status and people scratched their heads, because one of the most prominent political donors in a state doesn’t quite come off as an outsider.

“Change agent” is a more believable moniker. We’d expect Wags might drive more results if he went with that.

But Landry’s brand is that he’s a change agent. Talk to Landry supporters and that’s what they expect out of him. And it’s mostly the problem that the other Republican candidates have – there is no market for status-quo Louisiana among the electorate, and that’s a big reason Wilson is struggling to consolidate the Democrat vote (Edwards’ 39 percent approval rating, which is about the lowest we’ve ever seen for him, is likely another), so there’s considerable agreement that the next governor needs to be the most aggressive change agent we can find, and so far people think that’s Landry.

So he’s risen from the low 30’s to just under 40 percent in about three weeks while none of the other Republicans can get above five percent.

And barring something major happening between now and mid-October that shakes up this race, it’s harder to see somebody with a real chance to beat Landry upending Wilson and sneaking into the runoff than it is to see Landry mopping up most of those undecideds and finishing this thing in October.

That would be a massive political feat, and if it happened it would put Landry in a more commanding position as governor than anybody since, perhaps Jindal in his first term (and Landry would have a far friendlier legislature to work with than Jindal had). We still aren’t betting on that, but if this poll is correct then it starts to enter the realm of possibility.