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

[MT Treasurer]

I think JBE avoids a runoff with 52% of the vote, give or take 1%. I guess it could go to a runoff, but people here are seriously underestimating JBE (and Hood).

[MT Treasurer]

I still find it to be a shame how Edwards is in the fight of his political life, when in a less polarized environment, he would be sailing to reelection. He has none of the privileges afforded to Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, and Phil Scott. Republican voters in Louisiana, it is clear at this point, make no distinction between him and the national Democratic Party. His support for the fetal heartbeat bill earlier this year may not save him from defeat, which makes it all a fruitless effort.

They can’t really attack him on his abortion record so they’re tying him to Clinton.

https://t.co/IJJybqNXPC

[MT Treasurer]

All the early vote confirms is that people are way too quick to write JBE off or underestimate the Louisiana Democratic Party. This isn’t better than a Tossup (at best) for Republicans, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a similar trajectory (and result) to LA-SEN 2002 here.

[MT Treasurer]

I'm aware of this. But I've also argued earlier (and this may have been more relevant), that Massachusetts voters are far more willing to vote for a Republican governor than the contrary in a state such as Kentucky or Mississippi. Polarization hasn't had an even effect.

Or maybe it’s not because Democrats are "far more wiling" to vote for a Republican but simply because Republican governors in MA, MD, and VT virtually have zero power? You also conveniently tend to leave out the fact that there are more red state Democratic Senators than blue state Republican Senators whenever you complain about "polarization" among Republican voters (which is in pretty much every single one of your posts).

[MT Treasurer]

This is true, as we have Jones, Manchin, Tester, and Sinema. However, all four of these Senators won by very narrow margins.

We also have Brown, who’s arguably more of a red state Senator than Sinema. Of course they won by relatively narrow margins, but a win is a win, and even the Senators who lost (especially Heitkamp) still outperformed Clinton by a lot even though they ran pretty bad campaigns, especially in the case of Heitkamp. Do you seriously believe that a Republican candidate could win a Senate race in a Clinton +20 or Clinton +42 state these days?

Jones is DOA in 2020 (and will get blown out by double digits by any Republican who is not Roy Moore),

Maybe, but I don’t think making overly confident (i.e. Safe R) predictions for any remotely competitive or contested race, be it MS-GOV or AL-SEN, is particularly fruitful, and Republicans certainly can’t take any of these races for granted. I’d wait until we know the actual results before I lament the polarization or "tribalism" of MS/KY/LA voters. I certainly agree that Jones is the underdog, but I’m expecting more of a 54/46 or maybe 55/45 loss.

and Manchin and Tester would have lost last year if they had faced better opponents (I'm thinking of Evan Jenkins and Ryan Zinke, in particular).

Definitely agree that Jenkins would have won (Republicans essentially threw that seat away, and it was painful to watch), but I think Zinke would have lost. Even with a more competent NRSC/Republican candidate, MT was never going to be anything better than a Tossup race for Republicans, although Tester certainly was (and remains) beatable.

Also, weren't you the one who last year was claiming that Bredesen, Edmondson, Heitkamp, and others were going to win? They all got blown out by double digits, in spite of the fact that Bredesen was a popular former Governor facing a mediocre opponent, and that Edmondson was running in a state whose incumbent Republican Governor at the time had nearly destroyed it.

No, I had Republicans winning all three races (check out my predictions ), but it’s true that I wasn’t willing to move them to Lean or Likely R mostly because I like to be cautious.

[MT Treasurer]

I totally agree with you on this. I don’t understand why so many people on this forum consider that liberal voters are thoughtful and smart people who don’t hesitate to go beyond the political affiliation of a candidate, while conservative voters are brainwashed, polarised people who refuse to vote for a good person and care only about the party of the candidate in question.
I mean, facts prove the contrary, the voters who put ’’the party over the country’’ are liberals (not conservatives), there are 4 ’’Red State’’ democratic senators while there is only 1 ’’Blue State’’ Republican senator who will almost certainly lose next year, you have 31 democrats who are elected in Trump districts while there is only 3 Republican congressmen in Clinton districts (and at least 1 of them will be replaced by a democrat next year). It’s clear that most democrats are very inflexible from a political perspective and they split their ballots far less frequently than republicans

Yeah, and it’s not just the number of red state/district Democrats vs. blue state/district Republicans, it’s also the fact that Republicans have to go through hell and high water to elect people like Todd Young, Roy Blunt, Pat Roberts, Marsha Blackburn, Rick Berg, et al. This pretty much never happens in blue states, which is the reason why even the most odious Democrats like Menendez can cruise to reelection.

I know this is a thread about LA-GOV 2019 and don’t want to derail this, but it’s seriously frustrating when people make these ridiculous generalizations about "inflexible" red states and "intolerant" Republican voters.

[MT Treasurer]

Thoughts on this one after what happened today? I’ll stick with Tilt/Lean D JBE +2 for now, but far closer to Tossup than Likely D.

[MT Treasurer]

This looks like it will play out surprisingly similar to LA-SEN 2002.

But who knows, maybe "polarization" will be enough to save the day for Rispone.