The play accuses Mr Dell'Utri, a senator and former head of Mr Berlusconi's advertising company, of drug trafficking and involvement with organised crime.

ECONOMIST: Satire in Italy

He was endorsed by all the big local names, including the mayor, Mitch Landrieu, and his sister, Senator Mary Landrieu, but the primary was marked by a slew of negative advertising from Mr Richmond's opponents that questioned, among other things, his involvement in a bar-room brawl over a game of pool in 2007.

ECONOMIST: The only Vietnamese-American in Congress faces defeat