BATON ROUGE - Republican David Vitter is seeking to gain ground in the Louisiana governor's race against Democrat John Bel Edwards in the first televised debate of the runoff campaign.

The hour-long debate, to air statewide Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Louisiana Public Broadcasting stations, comes with fewer than two weeks before the Nov. 21 election.

Edwards is trying to reverse a trend against his party in Louisiana, which hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2008.

Vitter has surprisingly lagged Edwards in the polls, after a blistering, attack-heavy primary campaign in which he battled two GOP opponents and voters were reminded of his 2007 prostitution scandal.

One of Vitter's main Republican rivals, Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, endorsed Edwards in the runoff, saying the Democrat would better unite the state as governor.