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"?
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