Red Hot Louisiana Appears To Be Trending Towards John Bel Edwards In The Gubernatorial Race

Louisiana's gubernatorial runoff is this coming Saturday, Nov. 16. It pits current governor, John Bel Edwards, a conservative Democrat, against a corrupt  Trumpist businessman, Eddie Rispone, who beat Rep. Ralph Abraham in the October 12 primary. Rispone beat Abraham by writing himself a $12 million check. Jungle primary results:

• John Bel Edwards (D)- 625,970 (46.6%)
• Eddie Rispone (R)- 368,319 (27.4%)
• Ralph Abraham (R)- 317,149 (23.6%)

Although Trump and Pence have been campaigning like their lives depended on it for Ripsone, two of the most prominent Republicans in state government, Senate president John Alario (a former House speaker and the longest-serving legislator in state history) and state Senator Dan Morrish, endorsed Edwards. This ad helps explain a lot about how a Democrat-- particularly a conservative one-- managed to put together a competitive coalition in a state as red (R+11) as Louisiana:





Trump beat Hillary in 2016 in a landslide-- 1,178,638 (58.09%) to 780,154 (36.45%). She won only 10 of Louisiana's 64 parishes. How did Edwards come to be the only Democratic governor in the Deep South? In 2015, the incumbent Republican Governor Bobby Jindal was not eligible to run again and the party's nominee was scandal-machine John Vitter. Edwards beat him 646,924 (56.11%) to 505,940 (43.89%), making him the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Louisiana since 2008, when Mary Landrieu won her third term as a U.S. Senator. The Republican Lt. Governor, Jay Dardenne, who had also run in the primary, endorsed Edwards over Vitter.

The Democratic Governors Association is funding Gumbo PAC to attack Rispone and as of the end of October had put $5.5 million in. The Republican Governors Association has it's own internal smear machine, Right Direction PAC, which had already sent $6.2 million against Edwards by the end of October. On top of that the neo-fascist Make Louisiana Great Again PAC spent another $373,000 on radio and TV spots smearing Edwards, and a third sewer money PAC, Truth in Politics, run by notoriously corrupt-- even by Louisiana-- Baton Rouge contractor Lane Grisby put $750,000 into ads against Edwards.

The most recent public poll, by JMC Analytics shows Edwards ahead 48-46% (and 50-47% including leaners). In person early voting-- which accounts for about 20% of the Louisiana vote, ended on Friday. And the big news was Democratic enthusiasm. JMC analyzed what we can learn for this cycle's early vote, which indicates a 51% total voter turn out (1.51 million voters) and a win for Edwards:

As of last night, 489,649 Louisianians either early voted by person or by mail in ballot (451,171 in person, and 38,478 mail in ballots). To put this number in perspective, this is the highest early voting turnout EVER for a non-Presidential election. Not only did it exceed the volume of in person early voting for the primary by 31% (or 115,459), but it was 91% (or 232,628) higher than day in person early voting for the 2015 runoff. The top five (by early voting volume) early voting parishes were East Baton Rouge (58,249 early/absentee votes), Orleans (39,260), St. Tammany (35,097), Jefferson (31,523), and Ouachita (20,854).

Whatever the turnout levels are from election cycle to election cycle, black voters (who are almost unanimously Democratic) tend to show up in greater numbers on the last day. But very rarely do they turn out to the extent that they did yesterday: a whopping 40% of the last day early voters were black (blacks represent 31% of Louisiana’s registered voters). As further illustration of how unprecedented black participation this strong is, in the 116 days of available data for in person early voting going all the way back to 2008, only four other times has the black early vote as a percentage of the total vote ever hit 40% (and three of those times were in 2008, when Barack Obama was first elected).

This 40% black electorate was in addition to stronger (relative to the primary) black early voting for the previous six days which never dropped below 29%. This means that the final early vote is 31% black-- a figure 6% higher (percentage-wise) than in the primary and 1% higher than in the 2015 runoff.

Does this 6% increase in the black share of the early voting electorate equate to a similar six point boost for Governor Edwards, though? Because at the same time that the black share of the electorate increased 6% relative to the primary, the Republican share only decreased 3% (it was 38%, compared to 41% in the primary). The remainder of the decrease came from lower turnout (percentage-wise) from white Democrats and white Independents. And since Governor Edwards has been running strongly among white Democrats (60-37% in the last poll JMC conducted and publicly released) and relatively well among white Independents (he trails 38-56% in the last poll), the incremental benefit to his campaign isn’t as much as it would seem, because the Republican percentage of the electorate remained relatively high, and among this group, Governor Edwards trails 17-79%.

What all of this analysis means in practical terms is that because of (1) the decrease in white Democrats/white Independents and (2) the relatively high Republican early vote, an Edwards poll lead of 50-47% over Rispone would become 50-46% Edwards/Rispone if the poll results were recalculated to reflect the demographic composition of the early vote.

Yesterday a Mason-Dixon poll was released by the local Fox affiliate and it also showed Edwards leading Rispone, 48-46%.

Why is this race such a big deal? Although he is a conservative, Edwards is immensely better than Rispone in terms of how Lousianans will be impacted by state government. Rispone is literally as bad as Trump-- yes that bad! And there's another factor to consider as well. The Democratic victories last week-- especially in Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania-- have made a number of Senate Republicans very nervous about their lockstep support for and enablement of Trump. If Trump was unable to help GOP Governor Matt Bevin-- his closest gubernatorial ally anywhere (and in a state as red as Kentucky)-- what will he be able to do for anyone, anywhere? A win for Edwards in Louisiana next weekend will drive that home, particularly to vulnerable red state senators David Perdue (GA), Thom Tillis (NC), Martha McSally (AZ), Steve Daines (MT), Joni Ernst (IA) and Dan Sullivan (AK).