Who were Rep. Badon’s voters and who will they support?

By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer

Only 18.4 percent of Orleans restructuring of personal loan Parish voters may have gone to the polls on Saturday, March 24, but neither the low turnout nor the expected surge in GOP voters were not enough to propel Stacy Head to a first primary victory in her quest to replace Arnie Fielkow. Still, the data suggests that despite falling short, District “B” Councilwoman has a good shot of victory in the runoff for the At-Large post.

Earning 43 percent of the vote, Head reveled in her nine point margin and 4,000 ballot plurality over second-place finisher payday loans tower capital Cynthia Willard-Lewis.

The former state senator and councilwoman likewise defended her strong primary showing of 34 percent against a candidate who many expected to win outright two Saturdays ago.

Critics of Willard-Lewis claim her second-place finish was a fluke based on name recognition earned by a perennial candidate.

Willard-Lewis’ defenders however, called such reasoning nonsense. They countered that for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, in a special election, the collective majorities of the African-American At-Large candidates outpolled the votes earned by the white personal loans with private lenders contenders. Fifty-three percent of the total electorate opted for Willard-Lewis, Rep. Austin Badon, or William “Poppa” Gant. If those voters stayed loyal to Willard-Lewis, she would be well placed to beat Stacy Head on April 21, 2012.

That assumes, though, that all—or even a disproportionate share—of the 18 percent earned by State Rep. Austin Badon would break for a fellow Black candidate like Willard Lewis. There is compelling evidence to the contrary, that large portions of Badon’s support were white, conservative, in many cases Republican, and more contact payday loan likely to vote for Stacy Head.

It was Austin Badon who aut­hored Orleans Parish’s original voucher legislation, and he has championed Gov. Jindal’s proposal to extend eligibility for the program to roughly half of the public school students across Louisiana. He fought against Mitch Landrieu, authoring a House Bill (counter to the mayor’s wishes) that instructed the La. National Guard’s Military Police Unit to deploy to Orleans Parish to augment NOPD.

Badon’s very unorthodox appeal to Caucasian voters may also mean that installment loans for bad credit no fax the more conservative-leaning Head could inherit his supporters later this month

The March 24 election did expose a weakness for Head in the run-off. She won her district, District “B,” with only 55 percent. The seat has a slight African American-majority electorate, and vast majority of those voters mostly opted for one of the two major Black candidates. In fact, Head won her District in this citywide race due, mostly, to higher Caucasian turnout rates over a less numerous Black electorate, that tended to usa payday loans waukegan il reject her candidacy in the “B” seat as well as elsewhere in Orleans.

African American turnout was anemic on March 24, as low as nine percent in some Black Majority precincts. If Willard-Lewis cannot improve those scores, the former state senator and councilwoman would have to depend on white crossover votes. In the past, that is not a constituency that has favored her.

This article was originally published in the April 2, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper