Welcome to the Runoff!: LA 2015 Liveblog

[DINGO Joe]

Souther Media is something of a boutique firm so there probably won't ever be crosstabs.

Other approvals:

Dardenne 59
Vitter 58
Mitch and Mary 56
Obama 43

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/jindal_poll_march_obama_vitter.html#incart_river

[DINGO Joe]

'Kinda sneaky, but the LADP took a page out of the TXGOP's book and preemptively bought the VitterforGovernor.com website name.

I'm disappointed, I figured there would be hooker ads on there.

[DINGO Joe]

What are the chances Landrieu runs? Either way Vitter is well-positioned for the first Pub-to-Pub Mansion handoff since Reconstruction.

He's been very quiet. Ugh, don't remind me of that

Was out and about today and noticed an aggressive batch of Landrieu for Mayor signs had gone up.  Really, the opportunity to be successful is greater as mayor of New Orleans than as Governor of Louisiana.  The idea that Landrieu could drag Louisiana into the 21st Century is a bit of a pipedream.

[DINGO Joe]

And there it is:

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Cue the jokes about David Vitter throwing his diaper into the ring.

I am saddened that I didn't get to make this joke first.

[DINGO Joe]

Well, if Mitch Landrieu wants the governorship, now's the time.

Well, there is the mayoral election in about 10 days.  I'm biased but mayor is a much better job.

[DINGO Joe]

And there it is:

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Cue the jokes about David Vitter throwing his diaper into the ring.

I am saddened that I didn't get to make this joke first.

Technically, Harold Ickes made the joke first in reference to the youth of Thomas Dewey running for President in 1940.

Somehow, I think Ickes joke had an entirely different context.

[DINGO Joe]

Vitter has this in the bag

In the diaper bag?

[DINGO Joe]

Again, while I'm biased, Mayor is a much better job than governor.  Also, a lol tidbit, Bagneris was actually endorsed by the Parish Republican executive committee, the only R actually running for any office, council A, wasn't even endorsed by the executive committee. 

[DINGO Joe]

Well, they're projecting it will be 65%. The SoS site mist be running slow.

Good; the chatter about running for Gov can carry on!

Good, its not just me. I was going by the SoS site and Rogue had already said on the other thread that it was called. Apparently some outlets made an official projection 35 minutes before the SoS site posted the early votes.

WWL called it like 15 minutes after the polls closed.  I assume they had someone down at the Orleans Registrar's office.  Really while the SoS can and should report the vote totals, it's really the Parish that is the official vote report.

It's not uncommon for SoS/BoE sites to lag, in the VA special election last week, I went straight to the Loudon website to get info before the BoE site had it.

[DINGO Joe]

The swing from '10-'14 with the Landrieu vs. non-Landrieu vote. Though the margin was similar, the precinct swings were much more volatile than I was expecting and very much along racial lines. Landrieu improved in the wealthier Uptown section (southwest) and Lakeview (my stompin' grounds) in the west. Landrieu slumped in the rest of the city, which is much blacker.

Turnout was down about 5% from 2010.

Well, 4 years ago Landrieu had white opponents and the black opponents were weaker than Bagneris.  Just making an educated guess, four years ago Landrieu got about 65% of the white and black vote, this time about 90% white 50-55% black.

[DINGO Joe]

Ever since Katrina, East Baton Rouge Parish has been the largest in the state and is the location of the state capital--Baton Rouge.  Local government is a unified city-Parish.  While the Parish has a majority white voter registration it's had a black mayor-president since 2004--Kip Holden who was elected mainly because his predecessor couldn't handle transportation issues.  Holden's tenure has be pretty uncontroversial and he's had little difficulty getting reelected.  So, currently the largest white majority jurisdiction has a black mayor and the largest black majority jurisdiction, New Orleans, has a white mayor.  It's sounds almost like MLKy harmony.

Like all central cities, Baton Rouge has experienced white flight, to both the unincorporated parts of the Parish and into adjacent Parishes (mainly Ascension and Livingston).  Now there is a movement in the unincorporated part of the Parish to form a new city called St. George, with it's own school system where the residents will be whiter and wealthier than the city-Parish  they want to leave behind. 

Obviously, this has the potential to be spectacularly ugly.

Details can be in read in this Bloomberg article

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-06/baton-rouge-s-rich-want-new-town-to-keep-poor-pupils-out-taxes.html

[DINGO Joe]

Miles, have you read an scuttle on who wants to mayor in New Orleans after Landrieu (the next election will actually be in the fall of 2017 to move elections away from Mardi Gras/Super Bowl)?

I can see Stacy Head running, but I can't see her winning, same for John Georges, maybe Arnie Felkow could be I don't know what he's doing.  I think the African-American community will be favorably prepossessed to have one of their own in office if they can coalesce  around a good candidate, probably an elected official (I think Nagin has sullied the idea of a "businessman" for mayor for at least a generation), but I have no idea who that could be.

[DINGO Joe]

In the Lt. Governor's race Nungesser has 1.45 million on hand, though $1 million of that is his own money,  while Elbert  is $2,175 in the red.  Hopefully Holden does run so that there is somebody I can vote for.   Nungesser is like a Louisiana version of Christie with shadier financial dealings and Elbert is an Elbert.

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/02/lt_gov_nungesser_guillory_hold.html#incart_river

[DINGO Joe]

Wow, good to hear about Guillory.

Do you think Holden can actually win a runoff against either of them though? I'm not sure.

Well, a Holden-Guillory runoff would be fascinating and I guess Guillory's hope is that the fundies vote for him, but unless a white conservative got in the race, I can't see Nungesser not making the runoff.  Holden's has some crossover appeal in Baton Rouge, but that probably has a fairly tight ceiling.  I dislike Nungesser almost as much as Vitter and while I claim to care little about Louisiana outside of New Orleans, the idea of those two blowhards in charge is pukeworthy.

[DINGO Joe]

Why don't you like Nungesser? I like him, especially over Guillory.

General bias, Louisiana politics is a cesspool and Nungesser has always flowed in the sewage.  Nungesser was supposedly a client of the same whorehouse as Vitter.  I'm not terribly wound up about the prostitution part, but the whole intimidation and threats of prosecution towards the women while the johns weren't facing anything, plus the whole question over who was ultimately paying for the prostitutes and why the madam's client book never came out all smack of good old boy politics.  

Really, I'm just hoping for someone to actually vote for.  
 

[DINGO Joe]

Wow, no kidding. I didn't know that about Nungesser.

http://thelensnola.org/2011/09/22/nungesser-vs-dardenne/

[DINGO Joe]

On Jindal:
By this point its very clear that Jindal and Dardenne have very little admiration for eachother. Dadenne said that Jindal governs "with an eye towards 2016" as opposed to doing whats best for the welfare of the state. He said that they rarely meet to discuss issues/policy; he said they've met "less than a handful of times" on any given issue.

One girl asked him if he thought Jindal would be a good Presidential candidate. He gave a flat-out "no."

Bus--Jindal, Jindal--Bus.  Does anybody in Baton Rouge like anybody?

On the ACA:
He said that he's inclined to be against the Medicaid expansion, but thats mostly because it hasn't been seriously debated in the legislature (mostly because Jindal has been so arduously against it). He said he'd be open to changing his mind after its discussed more in this session. I have a feeling he'll end up supporting it; to beat Vitter in a runoff, he's gonna have to turn out Democrats.

I believe that's what all the uncool kids call "weak sauce".

[DINGO Joe]

If they want to run ads comparing Edwards to Obama, then why isn't the DNC running ads screaming from the hilltops that David Vitter is a John with a diaper fetish who told a hooker he knocked up to have an abortion?

Oh, some random PAC has been running ads about Vitter's diaper fetish, not necessarily the Dems though.  Vitter has plenty of enemies.

[DINGO Joe]

Voted around 3PM.  I was #110 which means very low turnout. New Orleano Uptown precinct, white upper middle income, actually part of Vitter's old congressional district but more of a Landrieu than R precinct.  Very low energy campaign, only Edwards had any yard signs, but no door knockers or GOTV by anybody. Weather was still OK, bad weather in the North and West parts of the state.  Only R I voted for was Caldwell because
 I can't stand the tea party boy.

[DINGO Joe]

Obviously the biggest difference between the two down ballot races is that in the AG poll, African Americans make up a massive chunk of the Undecided, with in the LG race the opposite is true.   

Kip is a good candidate and did quite well in metro Baton Rouge actually running ahead of Edwards in several parishes (a Dardenne-Holden ballot was a thing in metro Baton Rouge).  Unfortunately, Holden doesn't have the money to raise his visibility much in the rest of the state.  There is a chance that Edwards-Holden could develop enough synergy to help Kip in the rural areas.  Conversely, Nungesser probably doesn't want to anywhere near Vitter during the runoff because a)Vitter b)rumors the Billy frequented the same establishment.  Still, I think it'll be hard for Kip to do well enough outside of metro areas to beat Billy.

As for AG, the only R I voted for was Caldwell cuz I don't like Landry, and while Baloney is probably a perfectly fine person, I know next to nothing about her, and I doubt most voters do either.  I still expect that most GOTV mailers and other info to the A-A community will list Caldwell and he'll win the A-A vote, but these things can be quite byzantine.

[DINGO Joe]

It looks like Bobby Jindal's bad approvals are even dragging along the Lieutenant Governor race - Nungesser only leads Holden by a measly one point.

Has Louisiana had a black person in a statewide office? I'm rooting hard for Kip Holden!

Maybe in Reconstruction, but otherwise no one has come close.  Of course Kip is light years ahead of Cleo Fields and William Jefferson as candidate.  He's diligent and earnest (clean).  He is, to use the term all the kids use these days, a bit low-energy and probably doesn't have the money/visibility to win statewide.  He'd probably need a huge A-A voter turnout to pull it off.  Not just in BR, but also NO and Shreveport and points in between.

[DINGO Joe]

Is Angelle supporting Edwards now? We could be heading towards a landslide if he endorses him.

It doesn't appear he'll endorse, but it seems there's significant movement within his supporters towards Edwards.

At least the ones with 5,000 bucks

[DINGO Joe]

Never knew Dardenne was Jewish, not that it matters.  Louisiana hardly has any, even New Orleans has fewer than you'd think, if you've ever thought about it.

[DINGO Joe]

Looked at the absentee vote this morning, don't know why, because without historical data it's kind of hard to extrapolate anything.  I would assume that population voting on Saturdays will be slightly different than those who vote on weekdays, some Parishes may have a history of voting earlier in the period vs later, etc...

Anyway, a few random thoughts

In Caddo, much more A-A thus far

East Baton Rouge on pace for higher early vote, B/W and D/R about the same.  EBR is the home base for Holden and Dardenne, so may not mind the Rs voting here.

Jefferson is on pace for a slightly higher turnout, but thus far it's been more A-A and more D.  Jefferson is Vitter's home.

St. Tammany again slightly higher again slightly more D

Orleans slightly higher no real change in demos

St. Martin big dropoff thus far.  Angelle's home

Tangipahoa higher turnout.  Edwards home

Plaquemines much lower.  Nungessers home

St. Bernard way higher.  There's a competitive race for Parish President.  The previous PP was in a sex scandal much weirder than Vitter.  He was still on the ballot and got 3% of the vote.  Though Vitter ran a couple of hundred votes ahead of Edwards in the primary.

Beyond all that, in general, many rural parishes in Acadia and North seem to be lagging in early voting, but maybe they have a history of voting later.  Though I imagine the dropoff in Acadiana has to do with the absence of Angelle.

[DINGO Joe]

Jefferson had Parish election too, including a competitive Parish President race, that didn't go to a runoff.  In fact, I think the only race that went to a runoff is a WB Senate seat that covers part of Algiers and Jefferson between Jeff Arnold and Troy Carter.