Talk Elections

Is LA's decently sized Catholic population the reason it is (or was, during 1990s/2000s) more willing to vote Dem statewide than MS, AL, GA & SC? No doubt southern Catholics are very conservative on social issues, however they lack the political organizing of the religious right that Protestants have.

It was, but seems - no more. Since Obama's election in 2008 (approximately) Acadiana turned sharply right. It still elects considerable number of Democrats to state legislature, but even that may change next year, when most of them will be term limited.

Partly, though the heavily industrialization along the Mississippi River also resulted in more union workers than in  other Southern states, but nowadays it's like other states as college education  and urbanization matter more.

The old Protestant-Catholic distinction began breaking down when the Culture Wars entered politics in the late 20th century.

Now it's more of an 'Evangelical Protestants + Traditional Catholics' vs. 'Mainline Protestants + Liberal/Cafeteria Catholics' divide.

Absolutely agree. Acadiana moved sharply right of late, while Shreveport and Baton Rouge areas - IMHO, slowly left.

Louisiana voted 52% for Bill Clinton in 1996.  Think about that for a minute. 

This happened because, at that time, Cajun Catholics voted with black Democrats, leaving White Protestants in Northern Louisiana in the minority.  This was the Edwin Edwards coalition, but it also elected John Breaux, Gillis Long, Chris John, Kathleen Blanco, and Mary Landrieu to office. 

The national Democratic Party made some major mistakes.  One was allowing Democrat Buddy Roemer to switch parties, leading to the tainted Edwin Edwards (D) having to be endorsed by Republicans against the Klansman David Duke (R) in a Governor's race.  Roemer was a whiny blowhard in his way, but he would have been on board for the national ticket in 1992 if he could have been persuaded to stay.  The other was in allowing Murphy (Mike) Foster to switch to the GOP to run for Governor.  Foster could have won as a Democrat, but Democrats got behind the ill-fated Cleo Fields challenge; this was the first step in undoing the black-Cajun coalition that could have made Louisiana as Democratic as Virginia is now. 

The running-off of MODERATE Southern Democrats who were loyal to the National Democratic Party was the biggest strategic mistake of their lifetimes.  This made the exodus of blacks during Katrina and the trends toward the GOP during the Obama years to be impossible for the Louisiana GOP to withstand.  It made Mary Landrieu unelectable.  Cajun Catholics' loyalty to the Democratic Party has been weakened by the National Democratic Party's intransigence on social issues.  Democrats have opted for uniformity on abortion and SSM at the expense of electing pro-life Democrats from places like Cajun country that would be supportive of most of the Democratic agenda. 

--Bubba did swell in North LA in 1996.  Won it.  In fact, the great mystery to me is why did he do so well there, but not win Mississippi because in my personal experience, they seem like the same kind of people to me.

--Buddy Roemer is an idiot and will always do what he wants

--Mike "Murphy" Foster could not have won the primary as a D, there were no political bosses to make that happen.  The Democratic field had, besides Cleo Fields, Mary Landrieu, Lt Governor Malinda Schwegmann, and wealthy self-financed Baton Rouge businessman Phil Preiss.  The only Republican was flaky dumbass Buddy Roemer making his "comeback". He chose the correct path to be governor.  He's a lousy person from a historically horrible family, so there really was no reason to try to kiss his butt anyway.

--Blanco got elected with the coalition you speak of after the "mistakes" you speak of, and it could happen again with the right candidate.  Just as John Bel got elected with a variation of that coalition (though his map follows more of a national Democrat trend).

--If you think Louisiana could be comparable to Virginia in any parallel universe you can create, you need to put the crack pipe down.

--Post-Katrina moved the population around, but the demographics of the state have stayed the same, with a small steady rise in the % of African-American voters.  I guess maybe it sparked a modest increase in Hispanics as there was an influx of mobile labor after the storm and Hispanics are the most mobile of labor.  They still remain least likely to register and vote.

One other interesting thing about 1996 was when Mary Landrieu first got elected, it was by the skin of her teeth as she barely beat known fundie grifter Woody Jenkins, and actually ran behind Bubba.  There was crossover voting all over the place in that elections.  In rural areas there were plenty of Bubba-Jenkins voters and in the metro areas there were Dole-Landrieu voters.  There was definitely a trend based on educational attainment  that in many ways presages the current era.

Louisiana is one of the states I still have a hard time wrapping my head around. It went from voting for Bill Clinton by double-digits in 1996 to an 8% Bush win in 2000. It has not really turned back from it's rightward pull since. If social issues were the big reason for the shift, why was Louisiana still willing to vote for Bill Clinton, who's abortion policy was "safe, legal and rare"?

Clinton won the white vote in New Orleans. I assume Catholics and young whites make up a large number of that group of voters. Trump won the white vote in every county of Mississippi and Alabama. Mississippi and Alabama are also more inelastic.

Louisiana’s swing from Clinton to Bush was probably a combination of the oil and natural gas industries and social issues. All of the major fossil fuel extracting states had big swings to Bush

Does anyone know what % of blacks in Louisiana are Catholic?  I’m curious.

Why didn't fossil fuel extraction help HW and Dole as much it helped Dubya, McCain, Romney, and Trump?

Here you go (http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/compare/religious-tradition/by/racial-and-ethnic-composition/among/state/louisiana/)

It's about 10%

Thanks.

Well, i agree that strong recent swing among LA catholics was caused by combination of reasons. Still, the most important to me is continuing liberalisation of position of national (and state) Democratic party on social issues - abortion and "gay marriage" (first, probably, being the most important). Remaining Democratic officeholders in Acadiana (in legislature, for example, where almost all of them will leave next year, and most - will be replaced by Republicans) are almost all almost 100% pro-life. That stresses again what is an axiom to me: candidates must fit their districts!! In Acadiana you MUST run 100% pro-life (and not so liberal on most other social issues) candidates if you want to win,  and not being ashamed of this. And not only there... And - i say it as solidly pro-choice man himself... Present situation, with 99% of Republican congressional candidates being pro-life, and 99% of Democratic - pro-choice, is more, then idiotic.

Some interesting stuff in here. I just want to add that, at least in some ways, LA seems more comparable to AR, MO, KY, and WV then to the other states in the Deep South. LA, AR, MO, KY, and WV all went for Clinton in '96, all five states had either a Democratic senator or governor prior to 2014 (WV/MO still do, in part because Manchin and McCaskill weren't up in the wave years of 2010 and 2014), and they all seemed to take a little longer to realign into solid Republican territory than did most of the other Southern states.

Manchin won election in 2010.

As for the thread topic, it does appear that LA non-Cajun whites are very similar to those of MS and AL.

Why anyone must expect them be different?

Except in 1996 when Bubba won enough of them in Louisiana to win the North part of the state (and state as a whole) but not MS or AL

Probably - there are some parts of Alabama and Mississippi he won too. Just not so geographically distinctive. Plus - Shreveport, which is, IIRC, much less conservative now, then 50 years ago, when it was one of the centers of Goldwater-style conservatism even among Democratic officeholders.

LA is Los Angeles. No further comment.

And NC is Northern California and SC is Southern  California... of course, people in the North Carolina and South Carolina might differ.

On Atlas, we ordinarily use postal codes for the states.. and should we ever use the letters PR for public relations after Puerto Rico is admitted as the 51st state of the Union (lest President Trump find some way to rush Cuba through military means) we will have to make that clear.

It is obvious that LA means "Los Angeles" in Los Angeles Times, which is easy for someone who has spent time in Los Angeles but not in Louisiana.

So if someone tells you "I had a great time in LA last week" what pops in to your head?

Spoken LA may refer to Los Angeles, but written Louisiana would be as likely if not more likely. Spoken, people wouldn't usually refer to a state that way. (i.e. one wouldn't usually say 'I had a great time in NE last week')

Also, given the context LA vs. MS vs. AL, Louisiana is more likely.

They drove over to Lake Charles.

Or maybe flew to NOLA, certainly not LALA, particularly since they said they had a great time.

Well, Shreveport is less conservative now than in the Goldwater era for the same reason Mississippi is less conservative--blacks get to vote now.  North Louisiana is slightly less black than Mississippi but more than Alabama, so again the question is why did Bubba win North Louisiana but not Mississippi?

The only reasonable answer - history. North Louisiana was Long country for a long time, hence - some traditition of rural populism among it's whites (more so, then in plantation Mississippi). Now it's almost completely disappeared: whites vote .. as "whites" (Republican), blacks - as "blacks" (Democratic). Bigger polarization of vote by race then in mid 1990th.

This sounds right

Slight nit pick, MS whites are not nor have they ever been "plantation" people for the most part. The MS whites who gave Trump 90% of the vote in the state are pretty much rednecks except a select few.

Generally speaking, white people began voting deep red in LA later than in AL or MS though. In 2004 some 25% or so voted for Kerry (less than 20% did in the others). It was really in 2008 that the change started to occur, when all those formerly Dem cajuns realized that a man of color was running for president.

No objections. I always stressed this moment and this reason too.

Rural areas of LA are pretty similar to most of AL and MS.

The difference is New Orleans.

Right now - yes. But - look for 1964 election results. Mississippi, rural NORTH Louisiana and Alabama - all for Goldwater, Acadiana and vicinity (no less rural) - for Johnson. This difference persisted for many years.