LA 2019 Gov Race: Gov John Bel Edwards wins a 2nd term

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I think Edwards will get pretty close to 50% in either direction, so I'm not sure whether or not it will go to a run-off. If it does, Edwards probably wins by 4-6%.

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Lol, someone is desperate:

https://twitter.com/RepAbraham/status/1181646965773230080?s=20

Yeah, Republicans totally run on #KitchenTableIssues

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Edwards 47%
Rispone 24%
Abraham 19%

Edwards 51.5%
Rispone 48.5%

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Modifying my prediction slightly:

Edwards 48%
Rispone 25%
Abraham 21%

Sticking with a 3-point win for Edwards in the run-off, though I'll likely modify that depending on the results tonight (if there is a run-off.)

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Well, we may not have gotten overreactions to turnout reports, but starting in 20 minutes, we'll get to move on to plenty of "OMG! (Candidate) is at (percentage) in (parish) (with less than 10% in)! (Candidate) is (guaranteed to win/finished)!"

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One more thing (in addition to more results and numbers from Baton Rouge/New Orleans) we'll need to know before making any conclusions is whether the early vote is more or less favorable for Edwards.

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JBE definitely does seem to be improving his numbers in parishes that are starting to count their ED vote. A big factor will be how much the numbers change.

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Finally some votes from Caddo... but only about 1000, and they're not EV.

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Based on what we have to far, I think Edwards is going to end up pretty close to 50% in either direction, as I expected. We might not know for sure tonight. Either way, it's looking very bad for Abraham, since he was several points ahead of Rispone, but he's fallen a couple points behind now.

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Looks like this will go to a run-off, but let's see what the final percentage is before declaring Rispone Governor-elect. While he'll obviously win the vast majority of Abraham's voters, I don't think he'll win 100% (even a small amount staying home could make a difference), and while Trump rallies could help Rispone, they're not going to get him an extra 5% of the vote.

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There's always a talking point (muh Kavanaugh, muh impeachment, etc.) Republicans can turn to to explain Republicans voting Republican even when the Democrat running is pro-life and decidedly to the right of most national Democrats (Republicans assure us that if only Democrats were "moderate" or "pro-life" they'd be winning in landslides.) The more logical explanation is that Republicans only care about the magic (R) and Trump. Not even abortion really matters; Edwards is pro-life.

It's also clearly not the case that "both sides do it." If that were true, Scott, Baker, and Hogan would have either lost or only won by narrow margins. Clearly Democrats are much more willing to give "moderate" Republicans a chance, even though the national Republican Party is anything but moderate.

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I think people are jumping the gun here. 2015 saw the GOP carry 57% of the vote and JBE still carried out a sizable win.

Let's be real. The only reason JBE is Governor of Louisiana is because of David Vitter. Had he faced Agnelle he would have lost.

Nobodies disagreeing with you there. Same reason why Hogan is governor of Maryland and Dems picked up Kansas. Once you win though you have a record to run on.

But why is it that Hogan won by 11% last year, in a state that is just as heavily Democratic as Louisiana is Republican, while Edwards might lose?

Because despite popular belief, the Republican base is far more partisan and inflexible than the Democratic base.

This. Not sure why this is so hard for people to wrap their heads around. Both sides are not always equally bad.

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Edwards probably ends the night at 47%. I don't think he can be totally counted out, but clearly the "Democrats would win if they were only more 'moderate'" talking point took another big hit tonight. I'd like to see some Edwards/Rispone polls, so I'll leave this as a Toss-Up for now, but this night definitely didn't go the way Edwards planned.

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Edwards probably ends the night at 47%. I don't think he can be totally counted out, but clearly the "Democrats would win if they were only more 'moderate'" talking point took another big hit tonight. I'd like to see some Edwards/Rispone polls, so I'll leave this as a Toss-Up for now, but this night definitely didn't go the way Edwards planned.

At this point, a Republican sweep of all three gubernatorial races is looking like a strong possibility.

It is definitely a strong possibility. At this point, Louisiana is the only race I can see Democrats winning, and obviously it's looking worse for Democrats now than it did before. KY has always been Safe R (I momentarily rated it Likely R, but it's clear that I shouldn't have changed it,) and I think it's safe to call MS Safe R as well, though I could see Hood coming somewhat close.

Here's an interesting question: When's the last time a governor with very strongly positive approval ratings lost re-election?

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Edwards probably ends the night at 47%. I don't think he can be totally counted out, but clearly the "Democrats would win if they were only more 'moderate'" talking point took another big hit tonight. I'd like to see some Edwards/Rispone polls, so I'll leave this as a Toss-Up for now, but this night definitely didn't go the way Edwards planned.

Of course - moderate Democrats can lose in conservative Louisiana. But that doesn't mean that "bold progressive" would have done better. On the contrary: most of Democratic candidates in downballot statewide races were more liberal, then JBE. Which percentage they got? Together - between 32 and 35% in all races (numbers very similar to Black percentage in the state, meaning that voting was, probably, very polarized by race, except governor race). Democrats absolutely cratered in Acadiana and around it (even conservative-leaning candidates were beaten badly), but former conservative Democrat, running for state House this time as Republican, beat an opponent, whom he lost as Democrat, rather decisively (letter after name was different). With rare exceptions (university cities) - all non-metropolian majority white southern areas became a "scorched Earth" zone for Democratic candidates. Any candidates: socially extremely conservative Milkovich lost to Republican too. Suburbs - another matter, but in Louisiana they are still relatively conservative and not that big (and, usually,  can't outvote almost 90% Republican rural areas).

Republicans gained considerably in state legislature, Only 2 white Democratic state Senators remain (Luneau and Smith, who was unopposed), the same tendency - in House. "Black party" and "White party" essentially..

I'm not saying that a progressive Democrat would have won, simply that it really doesn't make much difference in very red states, and that being "moderate" is not a silver bullet.

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Edwards probably ends the night at 47%. I don't think he can be totally counted out, but clearly the "Democrats would win if they were only more 'moderate'" talking point took another big hit tonight. I'd like to see some Edwards/Rispone polls, so I'll leave this as a Toss-Up for now, but this night definitely didn't go the way Edwards planned.

Of course - moderate Democrats can lose in conservative Louisiana. But that doesn't mean that "bold progressive" would have done better. On the contrary: most of Democratic candidates in downballot statewide races were more liberal, then JBE. Which percentage they got? Together - between 32 and 35% in all races (numbers very similar to Black percentage in the state, meaning that voting was, probably, very polarized by race, except governor race). Democrats absolutely cratered in Acadiana and around it (even conservative-leaning candidates were beaten badly), but former conservative Democrat, running for state House this time as Republican, beat an opponent, whom he lost as Democrat, rather decisively (letter after name was different). With rare exceptions (university cities) - all non-metropolian majority white southern areas became a "scorched Earth" zone for Democratic candidates. Any candidates: socially extremely conservative Milkovich lost to Republican too. Suburbs - another matter, but in Louisiana they are still relatively conservative and not that big (and, usually,  can't outvote almost 90% Republican rural areas).

Republicans gained considerably in state legislature, Only 2 white Democratic state Senators remain (Luneau and Smith, who was unopposed), the same tendency - in House. "Black party" and "White party" essentially..

I'm not saying that a progressive Democrat would have won, simply that it really doesn't make much difference in very red states, and that being "moderate" is not a silver bullet.

progressives would have lost to David Vitter

That's speculation, but even if it were true, voters are even more polarized in 2019 than they were in 2015.

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Isn't today expected to be a strong day for Democrats?

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I'm still going to be cautious, since EV isn't always a great indicator in most states (as we've seen before.) I'll still call this a Toss-Up, though I might say Edwards is very narrowly favored instead of Rispone. I'll make a final prediction later.

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So actually, I guess we should be saying...

No rain in NOLA, Rispone is finished.

Anyway, I don't see the NYT results page up yet, but here's the SoS page: https://voterportal.sos.la.gov/static/2019-11-16/resultsRace/Statewide