Is Jefferson Parish going from red to blue?
25th November 2019 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
The first bastion of the Republican Party of Louisiana, Jefferson Parish produced Dave Treen, David Vitter, Steve Scalise, and the Nation’s longest-serving GOP Chairman Roger Villere. Yet in the runoff, Gov. John Bel Edwards earned 57 percent of the vote in Jefferson. Arguably, had he not won the parish so decisively, Eddie Rispone might be Governor-elect today. Republicans call it a fluke, but substantial evidence suggests that the changing demographics and the inner suburban swing against the GOP (along with a possible turn against President Donald Trump) may be transforming the politics of Louisiana’s second-largest parish – and therefore possibly the state over time.
In point of fact, Edwards came within 100 votes of winning the East Bank of Jefferson Parish, an area so Republican that Democrats rarely even stand in legislative races. The Lane Grigsby controversy aside, the incumbent Democratic Governor accomplished this against a candidate who lacked any major sex or ethical scandals. Edwards did manage to best David Vitter in his home parish 51-49 four years ago, but only after a terrible runoff in 2015 where it was generally assumed that the U.S. Senator was going to lose in the wake of the prostitute allegations. In the 2019 runoff, the polls were neck-and-neck, and the one percent or 40,212, victory fell easily in their margin of error. That’s less than eight votes per precinct spread across Louisiana, yet Edwards still won Jefferson by an even greater degree than four years ago – even as he eked out a victory statewide.
Edwards performed reasonably well in the rural parishes in 2015. This year, thanks to Trump, Rispone won rural communities in a landslide, so a Democratic gubernatorial victory in 2019 had to come through urban and inner suburban communities exclusively. Nearly half of Edwards’ win came from the 17,656 margin of victory in Jefferson. Part of this was a surge in the African-American vote on the West Bank, yet a large portion of the victory came from suburban Caucasians in Metairie and Kenner who have not voted Democrat in the past.
Of course statewide, Rispone’s attempt to paint Edwards as a Warren-like Progressive failed miserably. At an event at LSU on the Wednesday after the runoff, Rispone’s campaign manger Bryan Reed defended the GOP’s attempt to nationalize the race, linking Rispone to Donald Trump and repeatedly describing the moderate Edwards as a liberal similar to Democratic Party leaders in Washington. Yet, Reed said polling showed Edwards maintained strong approval ratings, despite repeated GOP attacks. “On Election Day, our exit poll had John Bel Edwards’ approval rating at 56 percent. And so what we were doing is we were asking the voters of Louisiana to fire somebody they liked, that they thought was doing a good job. That is very difficult.”
“Our pathway to victory was making an ideological choice. It needed for us to be a conservative versus a liberal, an outsider versus a career politician,” Reed explained, suggesting he could not see a better strategy for the runoff. However, lacking any specific policy proposals, Edwards was able to turn Rispone’s support for a new State Constitution into an attack on the Homestead Exemption and higher taxes. Rispone missed any opportunity to respond when he demurred from adopting a proposal that might have motivated white swing voters, such as repealing the .45 state sales tax in a time of surplus, or a freeze on rising property taxes.
The ideological strategy did prove tremendously successful with rural Caucasians, but failed miserably with suburbanites – and alienated urban Whites in a similar way to how the Trump message has failed in formerly GOP loyalist suburban-urban enclaves like Staten Island or Nassau County in New York or Delaware or Bucks Counties in Pennsylvania. Perhaps as a reaction to the GOP’s pro-Trump embrace, Edwards performed well with some Caucasians for a Democrat, grabbing about 30 percent of the white vote statewide. As a result, in the Monroe suburbs of the Fifth Congressional District, Ralph Abraham’s seat, Rispone’s vote declined nearly 35 percent compared to what his GOP rival won in the primary.
Orleans Parish paints the picture best. Edwards won 90 percent to the 10 percent. Rispone collected, only 13,000 votes to Edwards’ 114,000. Put another way, Trump’s candidate Rispone did worse in Orleans Parish than neo-Nazi David Duke did in 1991. The former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard received 13 percent of the vote compared to Rispone’s 10 percent. Moreover, the percentage of Black residents in New Orleans in 1991 was 62 percent, compared to 60 percent today.
In contrast, in his gubernatorial try, Republican Bob Livingston earned 22.5 percent in Orleans in the primary, and Bobby Jindal managed to win over 30 percent. The GOP in Louisiana has attempted to add Caucasian blue-collar constituencies to its historic base of suburban professionals. Donald Trump’s appeal to rural/laborers, though, might have resulted in dividing the two constituencies from each other. By that logic, the president’s three visits to the state backfired. It might have not only spurred African Americans to rush to the polls, but at the same time, the rallies could have off affluent Caucasian swing voters. After Trump visits, vote turnout did grow modestly in white-majority rural areas. However, it jumped 29 percent in New Orleans, 25 percent in Shreveport. And nearly as much in Baton Rouge, mostly from African Americans rushing to the polls.
As pollster John Couvillion noted, Black turnout everywhere increased everywhere, and in Orleans and Jefferson in particular. “Between the 2002 primary and runoff (when former Senator Mary Landrieu saw her share of the vote increase from 46 to 52 percent), the Black vote went from 26 to 27 percent of the electorate… Black early voting increased from 25 to 31 percent of the total early vote between the primary and runoff (in person early voting didn’t exist in 2002, so we can’t use that race as a basis for comparison); Election Day turnout increased 1.5 percent in precincts where 70 percent or more of registered voters were white; it increased 13 percent in the Black precincts. Because of the increased voter turnout from Black voters, the racial composition of those who voted on Election Day increased from 28 to 30 percent Black between the primary and runoff. It also didn’t hurt that in the primary, JMC estimated that Governor Edwards received 91 percent of the Black vote, while that vote share increased to 95 percent in the runoff.”
In contrast, the GOP vote diluted, he explained, “In 2002, 51 percent of the primary vote went to one of three Republican candidates running. But while turnout decreased one percent between the primary and runoff, it dropped even more (seven percent) in the 5th Congressional District, which is where the eliminated Republican candidate lived (the eliminated candidate also happened to be a medical doctor, which is yet another similarity to this year’s Governor’s race). Similarly, in this year’s gubernatorial primary, 52 percent supported one of the Republican candidates, but in the runoff, turnout in white precincts (as mentioned above) only increased 1.5 percent, yet even with this anemic increase in turnout, Governor Edwards’ share of the vote increased from 31 to 33.5 percent. In other words, there were obviously some supporters of Ralph Abraham who crossed party lines to support Governor Edwards instead of Rispone in the runoff. A salient exhibition of this behavior was in the Alexandria/Monroe media markets (the epicenter of the 5th Congressional District), where the Edwards vote went from 35 to 41 percent. Since another 46 percent supported Abraham, it’s obvious that about 10 percent of the Abraham vote ‘crossed over.’”
There was higher turnout in general, with the volume of early voters increasing 30 percent (from 386K in the primary to 503K in the runoff), and Election Day turnout from 974K in the primary to 1008K in the runoff. The impact of the increase in early and Election Day turnout was an increase in total turnout from 46 percent in the primary to 51 percent in the runoff. (The total runoff electorate was about 1.5 million). Most particularly, African Americans increased their share of the vote, perhaps due to a reaction to the Trump rallies. Couvillion noted that the racial composition of Election Day voters was 30 percent African American. “Which when combined with the 31 percent Black early vote means the total electorate was about 30.5 percent Black – a three point increase from the primary.”
“In conclusion, Governor Edwards’ increasing the number of Black voters while also getting enough of the vote that went to Ralph Abraham were his two keys to victory (in addition, of course, to support he already had from less partisan Republican voters residing in the urban areas).” Couvillion is quick to note that Edwards ran 10 percentage points ahead of the more progressive African-American Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, guaranteeing that overall partisan lean Louisiana is in no danger of swinging away from the Republicans anytime soon.
However, in Jefferson Parish, “Gwen” Collins-Greenup earned 43 percent of the vote, nearly the same as Eddie Rispone, outperforming her results statewide. An African-American progressive Democrat, with no money or campaign infrastructure, managed to win over 52,000 votes in Jefferson, at the same time that Democrat Marion Edwards managed to claim a long-time Republican Council Seat. A competitive election in Jefferson’s only Black majority Council seat also played a role, admittedly, with Byron Lee winning over Derek Shepherd by 146 votes, driving turnout. Nevertheless, the Democratic-swing in Jefferson Parish also was the reason that Louisiana Republicans failed in their dream for a legislative supermajority.
The favorite in the 105th State Rep. seat, Republican Chris Leopold lost to Democrat Mack Cormier in Jefferson, 36 percent to 64 percent. The margin in Jefferson made up Cormier’s margin of victory in the entire multi-parish district. His 54 percent win over Leopold and 1100 vote margin came exclusively mostly from his 1269 margin of victory in Jefferson, killing the Republican Party of Louisiana’s hope for a supermajority in the House to counter John Bel Edwards. Therefore, Republicans will not be able to overrule Edwards in redistricting after the 2020 Census, solely because of Jefferson Parish swing voters.
The days when Bobby Jindal claimed 63 percent of the vote in Jefferson Parish are gone. Trump only earned 55 percent there in 2016, after all.
This article originally published in the November 25, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
