Convicted? Indicted? Caught on video? Many voters don’t seem to care

Reporting from Washington —  It is a tough campaign season for a lot of incumbents this year, with a grumpy electorate and Congress having few achievements to tout, but New York Rep. Michael Grimm would seem to be in a particular jam.

The record of the Republican from Staten Island, a borough of New York City, is compromised by some unfortunate recent incidents.

Like the time he threatened to throw a television reporter over a balcony of the Congress, as well as “break” him “like a boy.” On camera.

That would rank as a minor public relations inconvenience compared with what came next. Grimm, a former FBI agent, was indicted by federal prosecutors.

He is fighting 20 criminal charges linked to allegations that he fraudulently underreported more than $1 million in sales and wages at his Healthalicious fast-food location in Manhattan.

He is accused of mail fraud, wire fraud, healthcare fraud, perjury and other bad stuff. The GOP disavowed him. Pundits long ago declared him a political goner.

On Tuesday, though, he may win another term.

He faces a challenger whose bumbles on the campaign trail have invited national ridicule. Democratic candidate Domenic Recchia declared that a student exchange program he hosted at a local school gave him foreign policy chops.

The Democrat also grew flustered and walked away abruptly when a reporter asked him about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, referring to negotiations for one of the world’s biggest trade agreements.

Grimm’s hometown paper, the Staten Island Advance, just endorsed him for reelection — albeit with disgust.

Grimm is among several bad-boy candidates for Congress whose heavy baggage of scandal has failed to drag them to the bottom of their races.

There seems to be a crop of such candidates every election.

This year, the most notorious is Democrat Edwin Edwards, the former governor of Louisiana and a convicted racketeer now bidding to return to Congress. He spent more than eight years in prison for crimes connected to the state’s licensing of riverboat casinos. He left prison in 2011.

But the populist former governor has long shown a skill for retaining voter affection amid scandal. He is a local celebrity and a political legend, having served several terms in the U.S. House and four terms as governor.

He won his most recent bid for the governor’s office in 1991 after he was acquitted of an earlier set of federal corruption charges. His opponent in that race was Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Edwards’ campaign bumper sticker promoted him as the lesser of two evils: “Vote for the crook — it’s important.”

Edwards, 86, now is expected to win enough votes on Tuesday to advance to a runoff. The odds of winning it all, though, appear dicey.

The boundary lines of his Baton Rouge district now heavily favor whichever Republican emerges from a crowded field on the ballot Tuesday to face Edwards in a runoff.

But anybody who has been around Louisiana politics knows better than to count out the crook.

Nor are pollsters counting out the Kissing Congressman, Republican Vance McAllister, who is seeking reelection in a Louisiana district to the north.

McAllister built his political image around his devotion to Christianity and his family. And then he was caught on video in a passionate embrace with a female aide who is not his wife.

Party leaders asked him to please step aside. McAllister said he would. Then he changed his mind. More than half a dozen other candidates saw blood in the water and jumped in the race.

But the father of five, appearing chastened and appealing for forgiveness on the campaign trail, is swaying voters his way. His wife, who he says convinced him to reenter the race, is stumping for him.

Polls show the Kissing Congressman is poised to advance to a runoff