Jefferson Parish is reason why Young and Vitter under performed
2nd November 2015 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
To understand John Young’s narrow 1.1 percent — or 11,486 vote—loss of a runoff slot to fellow Republican Billy Nungesser in the Lt. Governor’s race, and David Vitter’s anemic 23 percent statewide primary result, which barely earned the sitting Senator his runoff slot against Democrat John Bel Edwards in the Governor’s race, one need only look to Jefferson Parish.
Both men lost their home parish. Amongst the voters who know them best, neither candidate could reach 50 percent in Jefferson. Voters who had elected Young parish wide four times, and Vitter twice in two separate U.S. Senate races, gave neither man a majority.
Vitter even lost several precincts of his one-time State Representative District, whose strong turnout in his favor had narrowly propelled him past Dave Treen into the First Congressional District seat in 1999. His overall loss in his home parish—in which the U.S. Senator normally dominates—suggests that Vitter’s pathway to the Governorship might face its strongest “roadblock” in Jefferson on November 21. That is, unless he finds a way to woo those Angelle and Dardenne voters back in the runoff.
Perhaps more shockingly, if the sitting Parish President had simply received the totals that his successor Mike Yenni earned on October 24, Young would have earned just under half of the votes that he needed to enter the Lt. Gubernatorial runoff. In fact, had Young won Jefferson Parish by the same margins he had in his past campaigns, he would be facing Kip Holden on November 21.
Yenni outpolled Young in Jefferson Parish by 4,354 votes or 52 percent of the electorate to Young’s 46 percent. In contrast, in Young’s highly competitive parish wide Council At-Large race in 2003, he beat veteran politico Lloyd Giardina by 15,296 votes. For re-election in 2007, Young beat token opponent Felix Solis with a margin of 40,695 votes.
In his first bid for Parish President in 2010, in a low turnout special election, he beat newcomer Larry Hass by 31,070 votes. (Young won a full term a year later when he ran unopposed. Opinion polls conducted early this year had suggested that he would have easily won re-election to his current job had he chosen to stand again, because unlike Nungesser, Young was not term-limited as Parish President.)
Like Yenni, Young underperformed on the Westbank. The Jefferson Parish President tended to outpoll his GOP rival, but in general by pluralities, not majorities. Nungesser’s strength with the people who live along the borders of his home in Plaquemines Parish made all the difference. Young lost some precincts on the Westbank by sizable margins to Nungesser, including precincts 190 by 45 percent to 34 percent, 193 by 35 percent to 27 percent, 210 by 38 percent to 32 percent, 211 by 50 percent to 36 percent, and 227 by 42 percent to 28 percent.
When you add these results to those from Orleans Parish, comprehension of Young’s loss grows even clearer. The Jefferson Parish President was thought to be popular in the “city proper” due to his pro-metro stands, yet he only prevailed over Nungesser by just 4,734 votes, 23 percent to 17 percent, in Orleans Parish.
More surprisingly, the rest of the metro area simply chose the Plaquemines Parish President over Young, despite early opinion polling data that suggested the Jefferson President had a 9 to 1 advantage in the GNO.
In St. Tammany, Nungesser triumphed over him, 43 percent to 34 percent enjoying a margin of 5,503 votes.
In St. Bernard, Nungesser beat Young 55 percent to 24 percent, or by 3,301 votes.
In St. Charles, it was closer, but still a loss for Young, at 31 percent to Nungesser’s 39 percent — or a margin 1246 votes.
The 1788 votes Young earned in Nungesser’s home of Plaquemines Parish (22 percent of the vote) did not constitute enough to make up the deficits elsewhere throughout the Greater New Orleans Area.
David Vitter, in contrast, managed pluralities throughout the metro area, everywhere but Democratic Orleans. Nevertheless, the truth is that John Young did far better against equally strong GOP opposition in Jefferson Parish than David Vitter did, and that made all the difference in the Young outperforming Vitter with the Louisiana overall electorate.
In contrast to Young’s 41,481 votes for Lt. Governor in Jefferson Parish, the U.S. Senator only earned 38 percent or 30,919 votes total in Jefferson. Vitter did only slightly better in his home base, Old Metairie, better known as the neighborhood that launched his career into the legislature more than two decades ago. It’s an area in which the U.S. Senator has consistently earned two-thirds of the vote in every election since. That is until October 24.
In silk stocking precincts of 101 and 102, locations near Metairie Country Club, Vitter only earned 49 percent and 41 percent of the vote, respectively. He barely crossed the majority threshold along Northline’s precinct 103 with 53 percent of the vote. (Dardenne and Angelle got 36 percent there, and Edwards just 11 percent, to demonstrate 103’s partisan leanings.)
In precincts 90 & 91, around Codifer and Brockenbraugh Streets, Vitter earned 49 percent and 47 percent to Angelle and Dardenne’s 32 percent and 36 percent. In Precincts 99 & 100, Vitter fell to 44 percent & 45 percent respectively. Virtually nowhere in Old Metairie, in his home neighborhood, did the sitting U.S. Senator surpass 53 percent of the vote. (In contrast, John Young, also an Old Metairian, earned 60 percent of the vote in his worst precinct there, and over 75 percent in most of that neighborhood’s polling stations.)
If statewide turnout remains the same on November 21, 2015 (not a given), to emerge victorious, Edwards needs 30 percent of the statewide GOP vote, or just south of 100,000 votes in the runoff. In Jefferson alone, in the center of Vitter’s political home base, Dardenne and Angelle collectively earned 23,566 on October 24, or roughly a quarter of what is needed for the State House Minority Leader to defeat the U.S. Senator.
If those voters opt for the Democrat in November, or more likely just stay home, Vitter is in serious trouble. In fact, with 63 more parishes beyond Jefferson for Edwards to woo disaffected Republicans from Vitter, the US Senator must achieve an incredibly high threshold to best the momentum of the Democratic State Rep. opponent to earn the key to the Executive Mansion.
This article originally published in the November 2, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
