Welcome to the Runoff!: LA 2015 Liveblog

[DINGO Joe]

Also: Early voting numbers so far suggest a 45-50% runoff turnout, higher than the 39% in the jungle primary. http://winwithjmc.com/archives/6863

I don't think they're adjusting for one less day of early voting (today Veterans Day is a holiday).  I think turnout will be modestly higher, but don't expect it to jump that much.

[DINGO Joe]

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/11/david_vitter_picks_up_rare_end.html

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You don't think Vitter paid for the hookers himself do you?

[DINGO Joe]

Voted early today, even though I prefer voting on election day, but the wife has to leave town at the last minute and is an erratic voter(didn't vote in the primary), so I toted her to the polls.  Drove to the Algiers Courthouse even though I live on the eastbank because I thought it would be easier than downtown and it probably was.  Saw my first Vitter sign in the city, in an empty overgrown field.  Don't know why campaigns think that can be beneficial.  

As for overall early voting, the basic trends continue.  A-A vote is 28.3% vs 26.7% in primary.  Cities and suburbs up, most rural parishes down.  Plaquemines is probably the biggest laggard which is odd because it's Nungessers home.  Tiny, poor, black East Carroll has had a hefty dropoff in black turnout for early voting, but the early vote in the primary was oddly favorable for the Rs in the primary especially compared to those who voted on election day.  Maybe there's a story behind it and we're only talking about a few hundred votes, but it is odd.

Vitter won a plurality of the early vote in Jefferson in the primary, but the early vote doesn't look favorable for him this time.   Really, Vitter ticked off the wrong person.

[DINGO Joe]

The final early-vote numbers:

Runoff: 257.000 (Blacks: 30%)
Jungle: 235.000 (Blacks: 27%)

Actually not quite final as absentee can still arrive until election day, probably about 10,000 more absentee will come in.

[DINGO Joe]

Very effective robocalls- the second one is particularly powerful.

In addition, Louisiana's biggest newspaper, the New Orleans Times Picayune, has endorsed Vitter.

http://www.nola.com/elections/index.ssf/2015/11/david_vitter_endorsement.html

Actually, the T-P is now the second largest being passed by the Advocate late last year.  Politics aside, the T-P is owned by an out-of-state company that has had an endless series of layoffs and is even moving the printing of the paper to Mobile, Al.  With the Saints playing so poorly, readership may collapse to nothing.

[DINGO Joe]

Weather should be nice across the state for election day.  Saturday is the first day of deer season that you can use your blinds, so while early turnout in the rural parishes looked pretty bad, that factoid makes it look awful.

[DINGO Joe]

Is anyone watching the Vitter-Edwards debate?
 

Not in Louisiana, the Saints chaos is the dominate story.

[DINGO Joe]

Is anyone watching the Vitter-Edwards debate?
 

Not in Louisiana, the Saints chaos is the dominate story.

The moderators should have asked the candidates their thoughts on the Saints firing Rob Ryan (Who Dat!). :-)

I was just over at the T-P website, the firing of Rob Ryan  had more than 400 comments, while the story about the debate had 22.  Gotta have priorities.

[DINGO Joe]

This thread is getting very cluttered up very quickly. Can we please save the "would you vote for candidate X if ..." talk for a Individual Politics thread?  

Yes, Miles, i will do it. But it seems to me - we will not get a lot of news before real voting begins.. Last RRH poll seems very strange to me, Caldwell percentage especially...

THe RRH poll seems pretty accurate, all Vitter has to do to win is get 30% of the black vote.

[DINGO Joe]

I tried to imagine a county map for this and this is what I came up with



Then I realized, this is very similar to Landrieu's 52-46 win in 2008. It looks like Louisiana is reverting back to when a sizable number of whites voted Democratic (30-40%). I tried to work out a reasonable scenario:

Whites (65%): 65% Vitter, 35% Edwards
Blacks (30%): 95% Edwards, 5% Vitter
Other (5%): 65% Edwards, 35% Vitter

Equates to 54.5% Edwards, 45.5% Vitter. Edwards needs just 28% of the white vote to win, more if black turnout isn't as good.

I don't have Edwards winning Ouachita, but I do have him winning Rapides, Allen, Jeff Davis and Ascension

[DINGO Joe]

The AG race will be determined by people who have no idea who either man is.

[DINGO Joe]

The two basic differences between Kentucky and Louisiana this election cycle are:

1)Nothing comparable in Louisiana to coal in Kentucky (an isolated utterly dependent region is losing their only source of jobs--and of course Obama is to blame)

2) Bevins had party unity, endorsed by all his primary opponents and even campaigned on the theme the last week.

In Louisiana the two largest Parishes are East Baton Rouge and Jefferson.  In East Baton Rouge the largest Republican vote getter (by more than 2-1 over Vitter) has endorsed Edwards.  In Jefferson Parish a whole raft of elected Republicans, led by the Parish Sheriff have endorsed Edwards and are actively working against Vitter.  Now, I don't know how politics works in your state, but around here if you go to the trouble to break party ranks you want to finish the job, you don't that person in a position of power.  

Beyond that you have concrete information like the early vote numbers which show a strong upward trend in Urban voting, including urban whites and a downtrend in rural counties that Vitter would have to dominate.  

[DINGO Joe]

I tried to imagine a county map for this and this is what I came up with



Then I realized, this is very similar to Landrieu's 52-46 win in 2008. It looks like Louisiana is reverting back to when a sizable number of whites voted Democratic (30-40%). I tried to work out a reasonable scenario:

Whites (65%): 65% Vitter, 35% Edwards
Blacks (30%): 95% Edwards, 5% Vitter
Other (5%): 65% Edwards, 35% Vitter

Equates to 54.5% Edwards, 45.5% Vitter. Edwards needs just 28% of the white vote to win, more if black turnout isn't as good.

I don't have Edwards winning Ouachita, but I do have him winning Rapides, Allen, Jeff Davis and Ascension

Well, I got all of those right, should have seen St. Charles (a sweep of the Saints).  I got Jackson wrong too, but who cares (I not always sure which Parish is Jackson anyway).

Weather was much more unpleasant in the southern third of the state, so it's good that Edwards was so strong in the early vote, though Edwards won election day vote anyway.

Jefferson was disappointing, thought it would be 55-45.  Freakin Metairie, I ain't spending any Christmas money out there this year.

[DINGO Joe]

Look at the Clerk of Court map vs the Sheriff map. Odd...
http://elections.thelensnola.org/2015/gubernatorial-general/index.html#&detail_level=st_tammany_precincts&race=St.%20Tammany%20Clerk%20of%20Court

I haven't live or paid attention to St. Tammany in more than 15 years, but there has always been an East-West split up there.

[DINGO Joe]

Do we know the turnout yet?

Only about 40,000 more votes than the primary.  I'm sure several rural parishes had a drop off in vote.

[DINGO Joe]

Very well said, Gov. Jindal!

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I think we all know Piyush voted for Edwards. Honestly though, he couldn't win this race. Either way it was a rebuke to him considering how often both candidates threw him under the bus. I'm kind of wondering if his drop out wasn't timed just so he didn't have to suffer embarrassment from this while still in the presidential arena.

What more could be done to him?  Move him from the kiddie table to the Gerber's table?

[DINGO Joe]

Haven't seen an official tabulation of the early vote, but it looks like it went about 57-58% for Edwards, which means the late polls that tried to gage early voters failed badly.