GOP vs. Dem turnout will decide if Sen. Landrieu is re-elected

10th November 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

The question of which group will stay home in greater numbers in the December 6th runoff, Tea Party Caucasian Republicans or working class African-American Democrats, will determine whether Mary Landrieu is the one Democrat from a “Red” state that manages to survive the 2014 midterm elections.

And, as Tea Partiers packed New Orleans’ Rock’n’Bowl last Tuesday night, the answer reminded unclear. The discontent in the room with the Republican who made the runoff—Dr. Bill Cassidy—was palatable. The hero of the assembled conservatives, Ret. Col. Rob Maness, may have only earned 14 percent of the vote, a distant third in the 2014 Senate race, but in the war of expectations, his final tally was a win. The result was far greater than anyone had believed Maness could achieve when he embarked on his lonely quest over a year ago, and many in the crowd were already talking about the Colonel as a candidate in the 2016 U.S. Senate contest, should David Vitter be elected Governor.

What quite a few of the Tea Partiers wondered was whether they would turnout to vote for Bill Cassidy next month. While Maness pledged to “put another 20,000 miles on my truck” to beat Mary Landrieu, he had a real sales job to convince many of his closest supporters that Cassidy had earned their vote.

Anger that Cassidy had not courted the Right flowed through Rock’n’Bowl, and the Congress­man’s refusal to appear at many debates had real resonance with the Manessites. Their antipathy was reflected in a pre-election, USA Today poll, showing an 89 percent disapproval of Dr. Bill Cassidy with Tea Party voters.

A post-election exit poll conducted for the Associated Press argues that they will indeed show up at the polls to defeat the incumbent Democrat. The exit poll of 2,444 Louisiana voters by Edison Research (of 40 random precincts) indicated that 51 percent of voters saying they would vote for Cassidy; 43 percent said they would vote for Landrieu. Just 4 percent said they would not vote in a runoff, only a third of the votes Maness earned.

Still, Landrieu’s secret weapon is her strength with normally GOP voters in the metro New Orleans area, particularly in Jefferson Parish. Observe the front yards of the small community of Harahan, where lawns were dotted with almost as many “I’m with Mary” signs as homes which featured Landrieu’s Republican opponents, Cassidy and Maness.

Incumbency mattered for the residents of the otherwise politically-conservative suburban town where Barack Obama’s percentages could barely break into double digits in 2012.

Infrastructure concerns, from a deteriorating sewer system to sinkholes to “pump to the river” have been critical issues that Sen. Mary Landrieu has personally taken up over the last three terms in office, and many Jefferson parish voters along the Mississippi remember.

Landrieu’s counting upon that. She needs 50 percent of the vote in Jefferson and Orleans Parishes to counter the rising GOP tide elsewhere in the Peli­can State. It’s a familiar script. Landrieu had prevailed un­der similar cir­cum­stan­ces beating New Orleans Repub­lican Suzie Terrell in 2002, even after the GOP had grasped control of the U.S. Senate from the Democrats, in large part due to Jefferson Parish’s support.

“Harahan has a lot of union people,” one of the Harahan recent council candidates who asked not to be named told The Louisiana Weekly. “Cassidy will win here, but it will be no landslide…A lot of people like Mary.”

He said this before the November 4 election, and the results proved him right. The most important statistic of that night was that Mary Landrieu won 45 percent of the vote in Republican Jefferson Parish, beating Bill Cassidy ‘s 39 percent, despite the wave of a Re­publican year. If the in­cumbent Senator manages to reach a 50 percent threshold in the runoff amongst Jefferson Parish voters, she can prevail statewide.

After all, Landrieu’s turnout numbers remained strong in Orleans. She beat the Maness, Cassidy, and the other myriad of candidates combined by nearly 65,000 votes. Match that with a majority in Louisiana’s largest parish, between Jefferson and Orleans together, Landrieu could eek out a narrow victory on the numbers.

But, only if Black turnout elsewhere in the Pelican State remains historically high, and there is no guarantee of that. African Americans must turnout in numbers equal to their percentages in 2012. Black voters make up 31 percent of registered voters in Louisiana, but two years ago, they were 33 percent of the electorate. For the incumbent Senator to have a chance, the Black community must repeat that feat. (Black voters constituted 31.4 percent of the electorate last week.)

The down-ticket Congressional races in December may prove the added motivating factor to push African-Americans to the polls. Landrieu will enjoy the boost of Monroe’s African-American Mayor Jamie Mayo making the runoff in Northeast La.’s 5th Congressional District. His presence almost singlehandedly was responsible for Landrieu winning several parishes in Northeast Louisiana.

In a sea of “Red” parishes on election night, Landrieu dominated the traditional “black belt” of African-American communities along the Mississippi River. The descendants of enslaved Africans and sharecroppers come out to vote, mainly because Mayo, one of their own, was on the ballot. For those who question the political wisdom of Landrieu’s ruminations on race and gender in her now infamous interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, her comments were aimed at specifically motivating these voters to go to the polls, even more than her minority constituents in New Orleans.

Landrieu’s other advantage comes from the presence of an enemy on the ballot. The fact that former Governor Edwin W. Edwards detests the Landrieu family, and Mary in particular, ranks as far from a secret. And, the feeling is mutual. However, the former Governor in the runoff in the Baton Rouge area’s 6th Congressional seat is a proverbial ‘Godsend’ for Landrieu. The question is will Edwards make it to the December runoff.

His 87 years aside, the former Governor won just 32 percent of the vote on Nov. 4th, far below the 35 percent, which is commonly considered the floor for legitimate Democratic candidates, when they run alone even in this very GOP district. It would fit in Edward’s history to drop out, knowing that he could not win, and also realizing that without a popular local Democrat on the ballot to pull out the Capitol City’s African-American electorate, Landrieu might lose.

So deep is the antipathy between the two Democrats, that possibility of Edwards’ dropping out of the race cannot be easily dismissed.

Excepting 2008, Mary Landrieu has always won despite expectations and the national environment. The question is that as ideological positions have hardened, can she do it again?

This article originally published in the November 10, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.