AL will not vote Democratic in any statewide race. Whites have gone from 70-75% Republican to 85-90% Republican since Obama.
Louisiana is not too different from Alabama demograhpically and they voted for a Democrat for Governor while Obama was still in office. A little different circumstances, sure, but there's a non-zero chance of a Democrat winning the gubernatorial race there with all that's transpired down there. You wouldn't see so many Democrats eager to run if they didn't see polling indicating otherwise
A decent % of LA whites are Catholic, very different from the evangelical protestants of the other deep southern states. They are not as devoutly GOP.
There's a 22-point difference between the LA-GOV statewide margin and the LA-GOV margin in counties that are less black and/or less Catholic than the state as a whole: Edwards won statewide by 12, but Vitter won these counties by 10.
Comparing the less black/Catholic part of the state to the more black/Catholic part, it's a 30-point difference (Edwards wins by 20 in the latter group).
