Can Kip Holden become the third Black Lt. Governor in the U.S.?
9th November 2015 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
If ever there was a chance for an African American to win the Lieutenant Governor’s office, it is on the coattails of a popular Caucasian Democratic Gubernatorial candidate at the top of the ticket—leading his damaged GOP opponent by 11 points, despite a barrage of negative ads.
Add the fact that the Black candidate in question for the No. 2 job is the popular Mayor/President of East Baton Rouge, with a history of drawing white Republican crossover votes, such a Lieutenant Gubernatorial contender should have a real chance of picking up at least some of the disaffected votes from defeated GOP candidates John Young and Elbert Guillory.
In fact, one poll from JMC Analytics, on behalf of the Baton Rouge station WVLA, lists Republican Billy Nungesser as having a surprisingly tiny 40-39 “hard support” edge over Democrat Kip Holden. The problem is that undecided voters, who lean towards Edwards over Vitter in the Governor’s race, break for Nungesser in the Lt. Gubernatorial contest. The probable reason is Holden has done little campaigning to advance his chances in the two weeks since the October 24, 2015 primary.
A real ticket-splitting scenario might occur where Democrat John Bel Edwards could win the Governorship and at the same time Republican Billy Nungesser could earn election as Lieutenant Governor.
What makes this curious is that Holden actually outperformed Bel Edwards in small handful of parishes, including EBR by over 7,000 votes. Holden also prevailed by 250 votes in Pointe Coupee, and in the small “Black Belt” parishes along the Mississippi River East Carroll and Madison by six votes and 93 votes respectively.
Nevertheless, as the only Democrat in his Lt. Gov. race, Holden managed to only achieve 33.27 percent to Edwards 39.89 percent — or a deficit of 83,820 ballots cast. In African-American Orleans Parish, Holden’s birthplace, he earned 12,606 votes less than Edwards’ result in the Governor’s race. Putting asides Young’s and Nungesser’s compared “native son” advantages in the Crescent city, the Baton Rouge Mayor had the same problem elsewhere.
He underperformed Edwards by 2,365 votes in Acadia Parish, by 3,010 votes in Lafayette Parish, and by 1,230 votes in Evangeline Parish. Generally, Holden did worse than his fellow Democrat throughout Cajun Country, despite Edwards facing a former Parish President from the area. Only in Scott Angelle’s home turf of St. Martin did the Baton Rouge Mayor comparatively outperform the Democratic State Rep, by a mere 273 votes.
Holden continued to underperform Edwards in North Louisiana, where neither campaign faced native Republican sons. In Caddo Parish, the Democratic Gubernatorial candidate earned 4,553 votes more than the party’s Lt. Gubernatorial contender. Edwards led Holden in Bossier by 1,771 votes. In Union Parish, the Baton Rouge Mayor fell behind the Democratic State House Minority leader by 599 votes. In Jackson Parish, the gap was 453 votes.
Race, of course, likely had something to do with this reticence. Yet, it is hard to ignore the fact that Holden has run a “home-base” election, spending little money, devoting little time, or making little effort outside of Baton Rouge. His own Facebook page is filled with events in the capital, it devotes only a fraction of its daily entries to campaigning outside of EBR. Eliminate listings of forums to which Kip Holden is scheduled to attend, and the social media listings would be indistinguishable from the campaign site for a Baton Rouge Mayoral election.
For Holden, who was born in New Orleans, not to be devoting a massive amount of time to campaigning in the Crescent City makes little sense. Nor has Holden’s lack of effort to court the conservative electorate who backed Elbert Guillory, considering that 85,460 Louisianans–7.88 percent — did vote for a Black man.
And Holden is no liberal. The Baton Rouge Mayor as built his entire political reputation on being a pro-business centrist who can appeal to GOP conservatives. Many of Guillory’s supporters were Evangelical voters who were already discomforted by the negative attacks made upon Billy Nungesser in the final days of the campaign.
Moreover, to not actively go after John Young’s supporters—who were more drawn to the Jefferson Parish President’s “moderate administrator” image than Nungesser’s higher statewide name ID from his past run for Lt. Governor—makes no sense for a Baton Rouge Mayor with so similar a good government technocratic profile as Young.
Equally, his fundraising has remained anemic. Even counting the $10,000 given to him by the state Democratic Party, in the last month of the primary, Kip Holden garnered less than $60,000 in October, a fraction of the amount that Billy Nungesser spends solely on social media alone—and far dwarfing the seven-figure television buys made by his opponents in the primary.
Admittedly, Holden’s strategy relied on the fact that he ran as the only Democrat in the field. This allowed him to spend little money in the primary and still emerge in first place. Still, he expended so little of an effort in real terms that his campaign built virtually no name ID for the runoff.
Holden’s electronic total media buys in his final campaign day filing for the primary amounted to only $850, and the BR Mayor spent less than $1,700 on Election Day campaign workers statewide. Add to that a sole $1,500 contribution to the New Orleans political group BOLD, and he managed to earn 360,679 votes on the cheap. However, he did little to prepare an infrastructure for the runoff.
Lack of money is an obvious reason. As his previous campaign finance filing (Sept 15-Oct 4) reveals, Holden only took in $12,100, and had just $93,262 on hand. In that same two-week period, Nungesser brought in $262,395 (though $240,000 were personal loans). The former Plaquemines Parish President spent $691,397, and still had $191,062 on hand.
And Nungesser raised $104,000 in contributions in the next filing period on top of that, not counting his own loans to his campaign.
More acutely though, Nungesser’s travel schedule seemingly puts Holden’s to shame. Every day, the Republican appears in a different part of the state to woo Guillory and Young voters to his side. If Holden’s travel schedule is as geographically intense, nobody knows about his visits. The B.R. Mayor certainly hasn’t promoted his appearances. If he is traveling, he wanders silently through the runoff—with campaign updates seemingly limited to mentioning appearances at the occasional forum.
Despite what appears to be lethargy, Holden still has a chance to win—if Dardenne and Angelle voters stay home. That is not so impossible. In the primary, white turnout decreased against historical norms while Black turnout remained constant. Recent polls suggest that 50 percent of the supporters of the two defeated GOP gubernatorial candidates will not vote for David Vitter. Jay Dardenne’s endorsement last Thursday may convince some ardent Republicans to just stay home, rather than coming out for the man for whom he encouraged them to vote, John Bel Edwards.
This electorate, Republican enough that they cannot push the button for a Democrat, might instead opt to skip going to the polls altogether out of disgust with David Vitter. Consequently, their normally GOP votes would be unavailable for Nungesser.
That would mean over 190,000 Republican voters would be removed from the electoral calculus on November 21, or just under half of the total votes earned by Young and Guillory. Disproportionately Democrats would be stronger in this runoff than any time in decades.
If African Americans went to the polls in numbers equal to their Louisiana turnout for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Holden could win despite his disadvantages.
Such a Black Election Day surge may be his only chance. Certainly, few strategic choices that Holden has made will help to become our state’s first Black Lieutenant Governor in almost 150 years.
This article originally published in the November 9, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
