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

[Badger]

I told you JBE would win!

Go John Bel!

It's really a sad thing, even if it's not very surprising

Poor people get to keep their healthcare under Medicaid Expansion, we may get a fair map under redistricting, and the budget will remain balanced. How horrible!

A pro dem judicialmander is not a fair map

And denying black voters' political voting power by drawing districts they have no choice in to elect their candidates, knowing that Louisiana has a history of voter discrimination against African Americans, is fair? Sad to see that an ostensibly principled conservative like yourself, was cheering last night for the candidate who wanted to gut Medicare/Medicaid and gut HBCUs, and is now trying to silence black political power by advocating for continued racial gerrymandering.

Come on, dude ! We are in 2019, not in 1919 and racial lynching is over, Jim Crow laws have been repealed and guess what ?? black persons can vote and they sometimes even outvote white voters. You should stop being a fearmonger

You come on, dude. Your Cavalier attitude about disenfranchising a significant portion of Louisiana's voters in choosing their Congressional Delegation, let alone African Americans who traditionally and habitually been disenfranchised by the state of Louisiana, is appalling.

You are Republican hack seeking more power because that's all you seem to really care about. But it's so good to hear that your bar has been succeeded since lynchings are now a thing of the past. Good show!

[Badger]

I told you JBE would win!

Go John Bel!

It's really a sad thing, even if it's not very surprising

Poor people get to keep their healthcare under Medicaid Expansion, we may get a fair map under redistricting, and the budget will remain balanced. How horrible!

A pro dem judicialmander is not a fair map

Yeah, they should totally just leave this great map alone

At least this map has been drawn by people who have been populary elected. (which wouldn't be the case of a map drawn by federal unelected judges)

You speak of partisan politicians with clear conflicts of interest choosing who their voters are as if its a good thing. Any "dem judicialmander" as you so eloquently put it would undoubtedly be 1000% fairer and more representative of the electorate than this unholy horror of a map.

You need to post here much much more often.

[Badger]

This would be a better map than the current one. The population numbers are no doubt off since this map is based on 2010 census data, but the 6th District would definitely suffice as a VRA seat and still make for a fairly clean map.

Pretty nice map. May I suggest for that northernmost District including Shreveport to include tensas Parish as well? The two counties North of it along the Mississippi are similarly majority-black, and separating tensas from them would unfairly dilute black votes in separate communities with common interests. It's very sparsely populated, so maybe it can be offset by returning that small chunk of DeSoto County to the district just to the South?

[DrScholl]

[lfromnj]

My dream scenario for a map would be the abolishment of the VRA and this map
https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1196211400911118336

[DrScholl]

I'm almost sure that 6th district would elect a Democrat in a good Democratic year and give that person a platform to run statewide. That 2nd district could also possibly give a Democrat a platform to run statewide. A fair map certainly isn't going to give Republican a 6-0 map and at best it would be 5-1 as it is now. With racially polarized voting you cannot get a fair map without the VRA. The fact that part of East Baton Rouge Parish voted to become it's own city is demonstrative of that polarization.

[Frenchrepublican]

At least this map has been drawn by people who have been populary elected. (which wouldn't be the case of a map drawn by federal unelected judges)

Who cares whether they have been elected or not? As long as the map is reasonably fair to the people (and not just Republicans), then that is all that actually matters. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you'd be singing a different tune if it was Democrats controlling the state and rigging elections and not Republicans. See how you like it when your only recourse is the judiciary, because the system is so corrupt that there is no way to stop a bunch of power hungry politicians from drawing one set of gerrymanders after another.

Don’t worry, dude ; democrats are also experts at rigging elections with gerrymandered maps when they have the ability to do it : - IL ; CT ; MD ; OR -

And be sure that democrats will likely adopt a very aggressive strategy in Virginia in two years when it comes to drawing the new congressional map.

[Virginiá]

Don’t worry, dude ; democrats are also experts at rigging elections with gerrymandered maps when they have the ability to do it : - IL ; CT ; MD ; OR -

And be sure that democrats will likely adopt a very aggressive strategy in Virginia in two years when it comes to drawing the new congressional map.

I thought that didn't matter because they were Elected By The People™

And I'd hardly call Maryland Democrats experts. They forfeited an 8-0 delegation and passed a horrid map because they cared more about giving incumbents their desired constituencies than actually maximizing partisan advantage. In this case that would be almost the opposite of election rigging expertise. Fact is, Democrats have nothing on Republicans when it comes to stealing elections in modern day America.

[Nyvin]

At least this map has been drawn by people who have been populary elected. (which wouldn't be the case of a map drawn by federal unelected judges)

Who cares whether they have been elected or not? As long as the map is reasonably fair to the people (and not just Republicans), then that is all that actually matters. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you'd be singing a different tune if it was Democrats controlling the state and rigging elections and not Republicans. See how you like it when your only recourse is the judiciary, because the system is so corrupt that there is no way to stop a bunch of power hungry politicians from drawing one set of gerrymanders after another.

Don’t worry, dude ; democrats are also experts at rigging elections with gerrymandered maps when they have the ability to do it : - IL ; CT ; MD ; OR -

And be sure that democrats will likely adopt a very aggressive strategy in Virginia in two years when it comes to drawing the new congressional map.

So what exactly is your solution then...?   Just duke it out and whoever wins the gerrymandering game wins?

BTW - Oregon and Connecticut are hardly gerrymanders.    They're both pretty plain, ordinary maps.

[Frenchrepublican]

At least this map has been drawn by people who have been populary elected. (which wouldn't be the case of a map drawn by federal unelected judges)

Who cares whether they have been elected or not? As long as the map is reasonably fair to the people (and not just Republicans), then that is all that actually matters. And I'd bet dollars to doughnuts you'd be singing a different tune if it was Democrats controlling the state and rigging elections and not Republicans. See how you like it when your only recourse is the judiciary, because the system is so corrupt that there is no way to stop a bunch of power hungry politicians from drawing one set of gerrymanders after another.

Don’t worry, dude ; democrats are also experts at rigging elections with gerrymandered maps when they have the ability to do it : - IL ; CT ; MD ; OR -

And be sure that democrats will likely adopt a very aggressive strategy in Virginia in two years when it comes to drawing the new congressional map.

So what exactly is your solution then...?   Just duke it out and whoever wins the gerrymandering game wins?

BTW - Oregon and Connecticut are hardly gerrymanders.    They're both pretty plain, ordinary maps.

Well, yeah that’s probably the only solution unless both parties agree to stop drawing blatant gerrymandered electoral maps.
In a ideal world democrats and republicans would agree to use some non partisan elements like counties borders or cities limits when drawing map, it would probably help to reduce significantly political gerrymandering but I guess that it’s very utopian

Concerning the OR and the CT maps, they’re both clearly favoring democrats (even if the OR map is relatively clean of course)

[Virginiá]

It would be really simple for both parties to stop, at least for Congressional districts. Just pass a bill in Congress mandating independent or at least bipartisan commissions with strict rules against drawing seats to protect incumbents, favor political parties, etc. They could even pass a constitutional amendment to that effect.

But only Republicans seem to be resisting that effort. It's not even a difference of opinion on specifics. It's a flat out refusal to even consider the idea.

[Nyvin]

It would be really simple for both parties to stop, at least for Congressional districts. Just pass a bill in Congress mandating independent or at least bipartisan commissions with strict rules against drawing seats to protect incumbents, favor political parties, etc. They could even pass a constitutional amendment to that effect.

But only Republicans seem to be resisting that effort. It's not even a difference of opinion on specifics. It's a flat out refusal to even consider the idea.

House bill HR1, which passed the Democrat controlled House,  would've established independent commissions in all states (with mandatory public input), and banned mid decade redistricting unless ordered by a court.

The Democrats are at least "trying" to achieve fair districts, Republicans are the ones perfectly happy to keep rigging the maps.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Bruh wtf

[Landslide Lyndon]

Things like that happen when trends run ahead of conventional wisdom.
It's like 2010 when Arkansas Republicans didn't take the majority in the legislature because they left too many seats uncontested.

[jamestroll]

Things like that happen when trends run ahead of conventional wisdom.
It's like 2010 when Arkansas Republicans didn't take the majority in the legislature because they left too many seats uncontested.

Yes and also because the Arkansas GOP didn't really have a bench to overtake the legislature and even as late as 2010 there were still entrenched legislative incumbents and many Arkansans had some local trust in Democrats.

Little did people know what would happen in the following cycles.

But anyway.. we may not be able to win Southern states federally but through suburbs we could do better with governorships.

[Calthrina950]

I wonder how many Trump voters JBE will get.

Edwards will obviously need Trump voters to win reelection. I suspect the ones he will get will be moderate, educated, middle to upper middle class white suburbanites in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge metropolitan areas.

I mean yes, but he will also be getting them in rural Trump country too. Obviously he will do much worse than 2015 there, but it will be places like Cameron Parish Louisiana where hell get high twenties vs like 10% and lose it by high 40s instead of like by 80. He will do much better in many rural Trump country areas than HRC 2016, which will go underapreciated should he win tomorrow. Sometimes it really does make a giant difference and help get you over the top whether you get smashed by 40-50 points in an area instead of like 60 you know?

It seems like we were both correct. Edwards won Jefferson Parish by 14%, and managed to crack 40% in St. Tammany Parish, which is an astonishing feat for a Democrat in Louisiana. He did better in both parishes than he did in 2015. At the same time, Edwards did manage to draw a higher share of the vote throughout rural Louisiana than Clinton did in 2016, though of course he did significantly worse against Rispone than against Vitter, and lost a number of parishes (i.e. Allen, Evangeline, Jefferson Davis) by landslide margins (more than 20%), which he had carried in 2015.

[Mr. Smith]

Things like that happen when trends run ahead of conventional wisdom.
It's like 2010 when Arkansas Republicans didn't take the majority in the legislature because they left too many seats uncontested.

Yes and also because the Arkansas GOP didn't really have a bench to overtake the legislature and even as late as 2010 there were still entrenched legislative incumbents and many Arkansans had some local trust in Democrats.

Little did people know what would happen in the following cycles.

But anyway.. we may not be able to win Southern states federally but through suburbs we could do better with governorships.

Uh, Texas is shifting fast, Virginia is flipped, Georgia's going fast, and even NC is on the way.

Or are you telling me only Flawed-Duh!, Tennessee, and The Deep South count now?

[Oryxslayer]

Things like that happen when trends run ahead of conventional wisdom.
It's like 2010 when Arkansas Republicans didn't take the majority in the legislature because they left too many seats uncontested.

Yes and also because the Arkansas GOP didn't really have a bench to overtake the legislature and even as late as 2010 there were still entrenched legislative incumbents and many Arkansans had some local trust in Democrats.

Little did people know what would happen in the following cycles.

But anyway.. we may not be able to win Southern states federally but through suburbs we could do better with governorships.

Uh, Texas is shifting fast, Virginia is flipped, Georgia's going fast, and even NC is on the way.

Or are you telling me only Flawed-Duh!, Tennessee, and The Deep South count now?

Well, there's cosmopolitan south and classic south. Cosmopolitan south behaves more like the rest of the nation both Coalition and trend wise. Classic south sees everyone vote for D/R nationally depending on if you are a minority/white. Cosmopolitan verses classic is a county-by-county dichotomy, and no state conforms entirely to either approach. Classic south is more inflexible today than it was in the past, which is what the post implied.

[smoltchanov]

Things like that happen when trends run ahead of conventional wisdom.
It's like 2010 when Arkansas Republicans didn't take the majority in the legislature because they left too many seats uncontested.

Yes and also because the Arkansas GOP didn't really have a bench to overtake the legislature and even as late as 2010 there were still entrenched legislative incumbents and many Arkansans had some local trust in Democrats.

Little did people know what would happen in the following cycles.

But anyway.. we may not be able to win Southern states federally but through suburbs we could do better with governorships.

Uh, Texas is shifting fast, Virginia is flipped, Georgia's going fast, and even NC is on the way.

Or are you telling me only Flawed-Duh!, Tennessee, and The Deep South count now?

Well, there's cosmopolitan south and classic south. Cosmopolitan south behaves more like the rest of the nation both Coalition and trend wise. Classic south sees everyone vote for D/R nationally depending on if you are a minority/white. Cosmopolitan verses classic is a county-by-county dichotomy, and no state conforms entirely to either approach. Classic south is more inflexible today than it was in the past, which is what the post implied.

Rather obvious, but some people needed explanations. Agree 101%...

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Results from Abraham's home village, yikes!

[DINGO Joe]

Demographic data for the runoff have posted

Turnout:
White 52.7
Black 50.2
Other 35.2

The gap between W/B turnout was 9.6 in the primary and 3.0 in the 2015 general

From the primary, the black vote increased by about 94,000, the white vote 56,000 and other by 9,000. 

The voting electorate was 65.5 white 30.8 black and 3.6 other

The early vote was 65.9 white 31.1 black and 3.0 other

[Skill and Chance]

Demographic data for the runoff have posted

Turnout:
White 52.7
Black 50.2
Other 35.2

The gap between W/B turnout was 9.6 in the primary and 3.0 in the 2015 general

From the primary, the black vote increased by about 94,000, the white vote 56,000 and other by 9,000. 

The voting electorate was 65.5 white 30.8 black and 3.6 other

The early vote was 65.9 white 31.1 black and 3.0 other

Wow, that was a stronger black turnout as a % of the statewide vote than in 2012 (30.6%) or 2008 (29.5%)!

[Calthrina950]

Demographic data for the runoff have posted

Turnout:
White 52.7
Black 50.2
Other 35.2

The gap between W/B turnout was 9.6 in the primary and 3.0 in the 2015 general

From the primary, the black vote increased by about 94,000, the white vote 56,000 and other by 9,000. 

The voting electorate was 65.5 white 30.8 black and 3.6 other

The early vote was 65.9 white 31.1 black and 3.0 other

Black voters saved Edwards from defeat, just as they were the decisive factor in pushing Doug Jones over the finish line in neighboring Alabama back in 2017. They (and I say this in a collective sense) are truly the backbone of the Democratic Party.

[I Can Now Die Happy]

Around three weeks before election day I decided on 51.5% Rispone, 48.5% JBE because I figured that Rispone would be able to consolidate the Abraham supporters, and persuade enough JBE-leaning Trump voters to balance out any increase in black turnout.

The day before the election I was more pessimistic due to reading reports of solid black turnout from "Souls to the Polls," as well as the fact that even Atlas Trump supporting friends like Lechasseur said they back JBE, and seeing Trump supporters being interviewed at rallies who unapologetically admit to voting JBE despite unapologetically supporting Trump.

Candidates like John Bel Edwards, Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, etc are beatable if the opposition campaigns are able to persuade enough Trump-voting "I'll go with the blue dog" voters into voting for the Republican candidate. I do think Trump could've done a better job in that regard rather than just blanketly calling them "Nancy Pelosi style liberals" - he hasn't put that much thought into these kinds of Democrats because they aren't high on his priority list of opponents to take down.  I also think that Republican opponents of these blue dogs (Rispone, Rosendale, Morrissey; even the ones who won like Braun, Hawley, Cramer) could all have done better if they came up with creative ways to deal with the "persuade blue dog Trump voters to abandon the Democrats etnirely" problem.

Show ads explaining the backstories of people who used to back "conservative Democrats" but have now seen the light of how awful the party has gotten. Instead of mindlessly calling them "liberals," use words like "swindler" or "trickster" or "fake moderate." Explain that those candidates don't deserve your vote for doing the bare minimum and that you'll do all the things that those Democrats have done that you approve of, and more.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Around three weeks before election day I decided on 51.5% Rispone, 48.5% JBE because I figured that Rispone would be able to consolidate the Abraham supporters, and persuade enough JBE-leaning Trump voters to balance out any increase in black turnout.

The day before the election I was more pessimistic due to reading reports of solid black turnout from "Souls to the Polls," as well as the fact that even Atlas Trump supporting friends like Lechasseur said they back JBE, and seeing Trump supporters being interviewed at rallies who unapologetically admit to voting JBE despite unapologetically supporting Trump.

Candidates like John Bel Edwards, Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, etc are beatable if the opposition campaigns are able to persuade enough Trump-voting "I'll go with the blue dog" voters into voting for the Republican candidate. I do think Trump could've done a better job in that regard rather than just blanketly calling them "Nancy Pelosi style liberals" - he hasn't put that much thought into these kinds of Democrats because they aren't high on his priority list of opponents to take down.  I also think that Republican opponents of these blue dogs (Rispone, Rosendale, Morrissey; even the ones who won like Braun, Hawley, Cramer) could all have done better if they came up with creative ways to deal with the "persuade blue dog Trump voters to abandon the Democrats etnirely" problem.

Show ads explaining the backstories of people who used to back "conservative Democrats" but have now seen the light of how awful the party has gotten. Instead of mindlessly calling them "liberals," use words like "swindler" or "trickster" or "fake moderate." Explain that those candidates don't deserve your vote for doing the bare minimum and that you'll do all the things that those Democrats have done that you approve of, and more.

Objectively, yes this is a really good take.