What changed? Before putting the CATS tax on the ballot again, those backing the tax changed the boundaries of the taxing district. In other words, the parish wide electorate that defeated those two tax increases was whittled down to include only the city limits of Baton Rouge, Baker, and Zachary. Those in unincorporated areas or in Central (who were the most virulently anti-tax) were not included in the taxing district for the CATS tax.

There was an additional stipulation on top of the revised district boundaries: the success or failure of the tax depended solely on how those living in the city limits of Baton Rouge would vote on the measure – the vote totals in Baker and Zachary were separately counted.

Because of this redefinition, the chance of the tax passing improved substantially: while East Baton Rouge Parish as a whole rejected the first attempt in 2010 to pass the CATS 47-53%, those living in the city limits of Baton Rouge voted 58-42% for the tax. Similarly, a proposed tax increase in 2009 to fund infrastructure and other items (also known as “the bond issue”) was defeated 36-64% parish wide, while in the city limits of Baton Rouge, the defeat was a much narrower 53-47% margin. This difference in levels of support was because the city limits of Baton Rouge contained a larger proportion of the black vote. Baton Rouge also has a growing white moderate/liberal voting bloc in areas close to LSU or downtown.

Since the bond issue failed 53-47% within the city limits of Baton Rouge, while the CATS tax passed 54-46%, we would like to use these two tax votes to explain what happened, especially since these tax votes (in Baton Rouge, anyway) were the only item on the ballot.

Even though the early vote in both cases was 40% for the tax, the early voting electorate went from 21 to 26% black. This foretold higher black turnout on Election Day, when those favoring the tax aggressively sought to turn out their vote, and they succeeded both in turnout and in intensity. While white turnout for both elections was about 33%, black turnout increased from 15 to about 23%. Combine that with the fact that the black support increased from 68% for the bond vote to a near unanimous 88% for the CATS tax.

We believe that the source of this increased turnout intensity was the fact that many (although certainly not all) of the black neighborhoods in Baton Rouge are lower income and are more dependent on the bus system for transportation.

Curiously, white support for the CATS tax decreased relative to the bond vote from 39 to 32%, but this was not enough to offset the 20% increase in black support for the CATS tax.

Below is a map graphically showing the different regions within the city of Baton Rouge. The area in blue is where the CATS tax enjoyed near unanimous support.

Regions of Baton Rouge

(1144 delegates to win) Romney 568 (55%), Santorum 273 (27%), Gingrich 135, Ron Paul 50, Huntsman 2 (Source: WSJ)

Presidential Contest 3/24 (Romney = blue, Santorum = pink, Gingrich = red, upcoming = white)

Louisiana Primary – the Republican contest

The South is now Santorum country. This was not apparent when Newt Gingrich was sweeping the South Carolina primary back in January, but starting with the Alabama and Mississippi contests, enough of the 60-65% of the Republican vote that has consistently been “anti Romney” had begun to move to Santorum to deny Gingrich wins in those states. This movement continued before the Louisiana primary: 65% of Louisiana Republicans again voted “anti Romney”, and Rick Santorum racked up an impressive 49-27% vote over Mitt Romney (the remaining 16% of the anti-Romney vote went to Newt Gingrich). This was a broad based victory: Santorum carried 63 out of Louisiana ‘s 64 parishes (Romney carried Orleans Parish), and if you look at the elections through the prism of the urban/suburban/rural split that is prevalent in these contests, you begin to appreciate how broad Santorum’s Southern support is now.

pink = Santorum <50%, red = Santorum 50-60%, purple = Santorum 60% or more

The “urban cores” of Orleans and East Baton Rouge Parish not only have large black populations, but have a growing “garden district liberal” constituency. Accordingly, this is where Mitt Romney ran the strongest, although Santorum still defeated Romney 41-34% here. The suburban parishes of Baton Rouge and New Orleans were even more solidly in Santorum’s camp: he was preferred over Romney 47-28%. In the smaller cities and rural areas, Santorum dominated: he led Romney 52-24%.

Santorum’s dominance in the South directly impacts Newt Gingrich. He only received 16% of the vote statewide, and his performance was nearly identical in the urban areas, suburbs, and smaller cities/rural areas. This is about half of what he received in Alabama and Mississippi, and about a third of his performance in South Carolina and Georgia.

Turnout and President Obama – We have consistently noted a strong correlation between the perceived level of competition in each state and the strength of Republican turnout relative to 2008. Even though it was widely believed that Santorum would carry Louisiana, the major candidates invested some time here, and voters responded accordingly: the 186K turnout on the Republican side was 15% higher than it was in 2008. About 12% of the electorate voted early.

(REVISED 3/25 PM) We have also noticed another pattern: when President Obama is on the Democratic primary ballot and his opponent is “uncommitted”, he typically wins near unanimous percentages. With named opponents, his percentage is somewhat lower (in fact, he received less than 60% of the vote in Oklahoma against minor primary challengers). In Louisiana, the 76% he received is mildly impressive, until you realize that his support was uneven. While his coalition of white liberals and blacks enabled him to get 93% of the vote in the “urban cores” of Baton Rouge and New Orleans (included in that total was 75% of the white vote in those parishes), suburban and rural white Democrats only gave President Obama 36% of their votes. This primary vote (which, it needs to be remembered, is coming from party activists who would actually vote in a party primary) shows the extent to which President Obama is broadly unpopular among the white electorate in this state outside of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

tan = Obama <50%, light blue = Obama 50-60%, medium blue = Obama 60-70%, dark blue = Obama 70% or more

Looking ahead/the “delegate race”

Republican primaries have become predictable affairs. For the trajectory of the race to change, Santorum has to surprise Romney in at least one of the states thought to be in the Romney column. On paper, the April 3/24 contests appear unfavorable to Santorum (6 of the 7 contests held will be in the Northeast/New England, and the remaining contest will be in Wisconsin). On April 3, Maryland, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia vote. Santorum needs to win Wisconsin to break the string of Romney victories in the Upper Midwest.

What about the delegate math? So far, Romney has a 55-27% lead over Santorum in the delegate count (as compiled by the Wall Street Journal) with 45% of the delegates chosen. For Romney to reach the magic number of 1,144, he needs to get 46% of the remaining delegates. Santorum has to get 69% of the remaining delegates to reach 1,144 by himself, although if his/Gingrich’s delegates were combined, that number would fall to 58% of remaining delegates.

We are now half way through in person early voting – it started this past Saturday and will continue until next Saturday. After that, mail in absentee ballots will still be accepted up until the day before Election Day. From examining early voting statistics provided to us by the Secretary of State, there are two things we noticed:

Low turnout numerically, but better than 2008

Yesterday’s cumulative turnout was 19,640, of whom 8,929 were Republicans. What does this early voting volume mean? Now that we are half way though, we expect that volume to pick up on Friday and/or Saturday, so that by Election Day, there will be about 22K early votes – the drop-off in early voting between Saturday and Monday was greater than we had forecast, which is why we adjusted our initial estimate of 25K. Still, when you compare this number against the 9,200 who early voted in the 2008 Republican Presidential primary, it appears that  voter turnout would be a little more than double what it was in 2008.

However, it is unlikely that Republican turnout will be more than double the 2008 count, because in person early voting is a relatively recent concept in Louisiana (before the law was changed, you could only vote absentee before Election Day under certain circumstances). In the 2008 primary, 6% of the Republican primary vote was cast early. Since early voting has become more popular over time (16% of those voting in the 2011 statewide elections voted early), we think at the present time that voter turnout will be between 14 and 28%, or a turnout of between 109-218K Republicans (for comparison’s sake, 161K voted for the Republican candidate in the 2008 primary)

Santorum boost?

As part of our analysis of the early vote, we looked at where (i.e., which parishes) the early votes were coming from. In 2008, Mike Huckabee narrowly defeated John McCain 43-42%. His victory was achieved by running up large margins in the more rural areas outside of the Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lafayette media markets. In fact, the parishes he carried only represented 45% of the total vote cast and 47% of the early vote cast.  The early voting so far shows that 55% of the early vote cast came from the “Huckabee parishes.”  While this is slightly down from the 57% figure we reported after Saturday’s voting, the indications are still that the evangelical voters who supported Huckabee in 2008 are more likely to vote for Santorum than Gingrich (or even Romney) – especially since Santorum’s dual victories in Mississippi and Alabama give him credibility with Southern voters now, and the strong early vote in the “Huckabee parishes” benefits Santorum’s candidacy. Below is a graphical depiction of the 2008 vote by parish in the Republican primary. We will re analyze this data once in person early voting has concluded.

Red = Huckabee, Blue = McCain

Conclusion

Why do we make a big deal about early voting? When the Legislature essentially established “no fault” early voting several years ago, you now have a noticeable constituency of people who prefer the convenience of early voting, and this constituency has thus far ranged from 6 to 16% – a politician would be foolish to ignore this many voters, especially in a closely contested race. Also, too, early voting numbers are the first ones that are typically reported after polls have closed at 8 PM.

(1144 delegates to win) Romney 495 (53%), Santorum 252 (27%), Gingrich 131, Ron Paul 48, Huntsman 2 (Source: WSJ)

President Obama Job Approval 47-49% (14 day rolling average)

Presidential Contest 3/14 (Romney = blue, Santorum = pink, Gingrich = red)

Alabama, Mississippi, and Hawaii

The tempo of the Presidential campaign changed last night. We had noted in our previous analysis that  “…Frontrunner Mitt Romney’s coalition includes moderate/liberal Republicans on either coast, affluent urban neighborhoods, Western voters, and Mormons. Rick Santorum now has a national base of religious voters, middle income suburbs, and small towns, with one important exception: portions of the Deep South with a large percentage of native Southerners – that voter bloc is still solidly behind Newt Gingrich….”  This pattern has mostly been set in stone with each contest, and was further reinforced by Santorum’s defeating Romney 51-21% in the Kansas caucuses on Saturday, while in last night’s Hawaii caucus, Romney returned the favor by defeating Santorum 45-25%. However, our original presumption that Newt was unshakable in the Deep South (especially in areas with few “outsiders”) was rebutted last night with twin Santorum victories in Alabama and Mississippi.

With the contests we have seen in the Deep South thus far, we have noticed that the “anti Romney” vote there has consistently been in the 60-65% range, while Mitt Romney has remained in the 25-30% range. Before Rick Santorum was considered a viable candidate, that “anti Romney” vote was dominated by Newt Gingrich, which is how he carried Georgia and South Carolina. What changed in Alabama and Mississippi last night was that enough of the “anti Romney” vote (which was, coincidentally, 64% in both states) migrated into the Santorum camp to enable him to win both states. Assuming this movement of the “anti Romneys” towards Santorum continues/accelerates, Santorum will be in an excellent position to win Louisiana when it holds its primary next Saturday, March 24.

How was Santorum able to win both states ? In each state, the small towns/rural areas outside the major metropolitan areas (Mobile/Birmingham/Montgomery in Alabama and Jackson/Gulf Coast/Memphis suburbs in Mississippi) cast about 60% of the vote, and in those counties, Santorum dominated, garnering 37% in Alabama (Gingrich got 30% and Romney 27%) and 34% in Mississippi (Gingrich got 33% and Romney 29%). The urban areas in both states voted for Romney, but with only 34% of the primary vote (Santorum received 32% and Gingrich 29%). This coalition of rural areas and suburbs is where Santorum assembled his victories, although it’s worth noticing that with local establishment support, Romney was able to garner pluralities in most counties in the Mississippi Delta.

However, it would be a mistake to count Romney out, although it’s clear he is not, from a popular vote perspective, the dominant candidate. Illinois has its primary next Tuesday March 20, and the Republican electorate there (especially in Chicagoland) is more moderate, and this ideological dynamic heavily favors Mitt Romney. Furthermore, the April contests are tilted towards Romney, since 6 of the 7 contests held will be in the Northeast/New England (the remaining contest will be in Wisconsin). For the equilibrium/dynamics of the contest to change, Santorum needs to win, at a minimum, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as at least one of the remaining primary states. With his electoral base in the rural South diluted, Newt Gingrich has largely become a non factor in the Presidential contest now.

Turnout and President Obama – We had noted in our analysis last week that there was a strong correlation between the perceived level of competition in each state and the strength of Republican turnout relative to 2008. This pattern continued in last night’s contests: because the three major candidates (Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich) were perceived to be competitive, and in both states, turnout was up over 2008. In Alabama, turnout was 10% higher than 2008, while in Mississippi, turnout was double what it was in 2008.

We also noticed that a pattern has begun to emerge in states where President Obama is on the ballot: when he runs against “uncommitted”, he typically wins near unanimous percentages.  This again is what happened in Alabama, when “uncommitted” was President Obama’s only opponent – he received 81% of the primary vote (he received less than 60% of the vote in Oklahoma against minor primary challengers).

In the next installment of this article, we will discuss how early voting is proceeding in Louisiana, since we are essentially are at the half way mark.

Congressional/Statewide contests

Generic Congressional vote: 45-42 Republican/Democrat (14 day rolling average)

Alabama and Mississippi also became the second and third states to hold Congressional primaries last night. While there were no surprises, we noticed a continuation of two occurrences that we first saw in Ohio: (1) defeated incumbents were unable to make a comeback, (2) current incumbents (especially on the Republican side) are facing competitive primary races. In Alabama, party switcher Parker Griffith was humiliated with a 33% showing in the 2010 Republican primary. He sought a rematch, but lost additional ground: he could only garner 29% against Republican incumbent Mo Brooks.

Also newsworthy was that three Republican incumbents faced substantial primary challenges, and each of the three won his primary with less than 60% of the vote. While these incumbents represent Republican districts and are probably safe this fall, it does indicate that there is lingering dissatisfaction out there with primary voters that Republican incumbents would be wise to take note of.

Next week, Illinois is holding its Congressional primaries at the same time as the Presidential race. After that, the Congressional primary schedule is quiet in April: only two states (Maryland and Pennsylvania) hold primaries.

Meanwhile, Congressional qualifying has concluded in four more states (California, Idaho, Montana, and Texas). There were no surprises in Idaho and Montana, and we do not yet have the official list in Texas and California. Filing also concludes this week in Maine, Utah, Iowa, and Nevada.

At the present time, the “retirement count” is now 42 House members (25 Democrats and 17 Republicans) and 10 Senators (7 Democrats and 3 Republicans).  The Congressional playing field will become clearer by the end of the month: by then, a total of 26 states will see their candidate qualifying finish.

Early voting for this primary started yesterday and will continue until next Saturday (mail in ballots will still be accepted up until the day before Election Day). From examining early voting statistics provided to us by the Secretary of State, there are two things we noticed:

Low turnout numerically, but better than 2008

Yesterday’s turnout was 10,578, of whom 4,389 were Republicans. What does this early voting volume mean? Given the fact that the first day of early voting is typically the busiest day, we project at the present time that by Election Day, there will be about 25K early votes. When you compare this number against the 9,200 who early voted in the 2008 Republican Presidential primary, it appears that  voter turnout would be nearly three times what it was in 2008.

However, it is unlikely that Republican turnout will be triple the 2008 count, because in person early voting is a relatively recent concept in Louisiana (before the law was changed, you could only vote absentee before Election Day under certain circumstances). In the 2008 primary, 6% of the Republican primary vote was cast early. Since early voting has become more popular over time (16% of those voting in the 2011 statewide elections voted early), we think at the present time that voter turnout will be between 16 and 32%, or a turnout of between 125-251K Republicans (for comparison’s sake, 161K voted for the Republican candidate in the 2008 primary)

Santorum boost?

As part of our analysis of the early vote, we looked at where (i.e., which parishes) the early votes were coming from. In 2008, Mike Huckabee narrowly defeated John McCain 43-42%. His victory was achieved by running up large margins in the more rural areas outside of the Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lafayette media markets. In fact, the parishes he carried only represented 45% of the total vote cast and 47% of the early vote cast. Yesterday’s early voting numbers showed that 57% of the early vote cast came from the “Huckabee parishes.” Since the evangelical voters who supported Huckabee in 2008 are more likely to vote for Santorum than Gingrich (or even Romney), we see the distribution of early votes as a signal that Santorum may run strongly here on March 24. Below is a graphical depiction of the 2008 vote by parish in the Republican primary.

Red = Huckabee, Blue = McCain

Looking ahead

We will be recalibrating our turnout predictions as the week goes on, because we know from historical data that early voting for the next six days will be lower than yesterday’s figures, but the extent to which there will be a “plunge” is not yet known.

Why do we make a big deal about early voting? When the Legislature essentially established “no fault” early voting several years ago, you now have a noticeable constituency of people who prefer the convenience of early voting, and this constituency has thus far ranged from 6 to 16% – a politician would be foolish to ignore this many voters, especially in a closely contested race. Also, too, early voting numbers are the first ones that are typically reported after polls have closed at 8 PM.

We had noted after the primary that BESE races were a continual source of frustration for conservatives and/or education reformers, as their candidates usually could not compete against a formidable coalition of populist Democratic voters that included blacks, teachers unions, and those connected to state or local governments.

In 2011, the business community, with Baton Rouge contractor Lane Grigsby as their quarterback, decided to invest their resources in the BESE races. These efforts were met with success: in the October primary, three incumbents were defeated, and three more races went into a runoff. The reformers’ similarly scored a clean sweep in the runoff elections, as their candidates (one Republican and two black Democrats) defeated their opponents, who were strongly supported by the teachers unions.

What makes these victories notable was that, for once, the teachers unions had very little clout in the broader black community outside of the traditional black power structure. The most notable example of this was in District 8 (which covers territory between Baton Rouge and Lafayette), where political newcomer Carolyn Hill (a black Democrat) received 58% of the runoff vote. The way she achieved this victory was a good case study of the rise of new political coalitions.

In the primary, Hill faced three opponents. One (Domoine Rutledge) was supported by the teachers unions and traditional black political leaders. Another (Russell Armstrong) was co endorsed by the business lobby. There was also a white Independent named Jimmy Guillory. In the past, the result would have been preordained: Rutledge would have faced Guillory in the runoff, and Rutledge would have then received 55-60% of the runoff vote (about 60% of the voters are black).

That’s not what happened in this race. In the primary, Carolyn Hill built a multiracial coalition of moderate black politicians and Christian conservatives. This, combined with the co endorsement of the main business group, enabled her to garner 20% of the white vote and 33% of the black vote in the primary. Rutledge actually ran last, despite his  support from unions/most black political leaders, as he only received 36% of the black vote and 9% of the white vote. In the runoff, Hill was able to expand her base with white voters by getting an impressive 33% of that voter bloc. Because she was not the preferred choice of traditional black political organizations/politicians, she only received 80% of the black vote (historically, blacks in contested races against a white candidate received at least 90% of the black vote). This is an impressive coalition she assembled, because this district historically was a populist union/Democratic stronghold.

The black electorate exhibited similar independence in the BESE race for the black majority district in New Orleans/the River Parishes, although in this case, two black Democrats made the runoff. While the incumbent, Louella Givens, had the support of the teachers unions, she had the baggage of a 1.3 million dollar tax lien on her house and a DWI arrest, while her opponent, Teach For America executive Kira Orange Jones, had the endorsements of Senator Mary Landrieu, retiring Senate President Joel Chaisson, and several other black elected officials. In the primary, Jones actually led 39-31% by essentially running even in the black community (she trailed only 36-37% against Givens) and amassing an impressive 63-14% lead with the white vote. This coalition enabled Jones to defeat the incumbent 57-43% in the runoff, which was attained by Jones’ getting 71% of the white vote and 44% of the black vote.

The reformers’ third victory was in District 6 (Baton Rouge/the Florida Parishes), where first term Republican incumbent (and the ringleader of the reformers) Chas Roemer scored a 57-43% win over Donald Songy, who had the wholehearted endorsement of the teachers unions. This victory was not unexpected, however, as there were Republican votes to spare – Vitter carried this district 68-26% last year.

In conclusion, the BESE races were noteworthy for two reasons: (1) education reform (in terms of charter schools, school choice, performance grading of schools, and the like) is an issue that both unites the disparate elements of the conservative bloc and separates a black voters from the teachers unions; (2) the old political paradigm of black candidates’ only being electorally viable if they have the express consent of the network of ministers and politicians has been discredited. Ironically, this is an unintended consequence of the creation of more “majority minority” districts – these new districts now have a significant minority of white voters whose votes now must be sought by black politicians if they want to win. Carolyn Hill and Kira Orange Jones clearly recognized this new electoral reality, while their opponents did not.

In the next installment, we will discuss the legislative races. Below is the map of BESE districts in effect for the 2011 elections.

BESE Districts

Certainly no one had a better night than Baton Rouge contractor Lane Grigsby. And for good reason: three incumbents were defeated, and three more races were pushed into a runoff. Historically, BESE has been one of those elected offices that not only got little attention (they share the ballot with statewide and legislative races), but was a continual source of frustration for conservatives, as Democrats allied with teachers unions historically dominated these races – Republicans weren’t even elected to the BESE board until 2003, and it wasn’t until 2007 that they even seriously contested a majority of the seats.

There were two reasons for this: (1) Because BESE is an unpaid position, not many people other than teachers unions and educational administrators used to care about who sat on the board, (2) until 2011, the business community didn’t pay much attention to those races.

That changed this year when construction contractor Lane Grigsby (whose mantra is “get into politics or get out of business”), decided to get involved, because of his belief that the public education system in Louisiana was broken. His involvement in this (and other races in the past) was no laughing matter: last year, for example, he provided the resources to help knock three incumbents off the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board. His motivation is simple: he goes after incumbents who he believes “don’t understand they’re supposed to be public servants.” That, combined with his desire to end teacher tenure (he noted that “it’s ten times harder to fire a teacher than it is for a lawyer to lose their license.”) motivated him into the BESE arena.

How did he do? In a board of 8 elected members (an additional 3 are appointed), only two incumbents were re-elected. One (recent party convert Walter Lee of Shreveport) was unopposed, while favorable incumbent Jim Garvey (R-Metairie) was re-elected in the primary with 58% of the vote. Each of the remaining six districts has its own story to tell:

BESE Districts

Defeated Incumbents:

In District 3 (south Louisiana between New Orleans and Lafayette), Democratic incumbent Glenny Lee Buquet lost 56-44% to Republican Lottie Beebe, despite the fact that Governor Jindal supported the Democratic incumbent. What happened? In this case, we believe it was Buquet’s Democratic Party label. In the two parishes (Terrebonne and Lafourche) that were most familiar with the incumbent, Buquet received 55% of the vote. In the rest of the district, 62% favored the Republican challenger. Since this is an area where the oil industry is a vital part of the economy, we believe that the drilling moratorium, and the resultant drop off in terms of Democratic Party identity, contributed to this large Republican vote. There was another contributing factor to Buquet’s defeat: even though the district is 20% black by voter registration, black turnout was significantly lower, and the Republican challenger got 19% of the black vote.

District 5 covers northeast Louisiana, and in this case, freshman Democrat Keith Guice lost 55-45% to Republican Jay Guillot – Guice was one of Grigsby’s targets. The demographics behind Guillot’s victory are just as fascinating: despite Guice having a base in the Republican stronghold of Ouachita Parish (he received 49% in a parish where Democrats are lucky to get 40%) and several rural parishes near Alexandria, Guillot was bolstered by a 58% vote out of Rapides Parish (Alexandria) and a strong vote in most of the rural parishes. It also didn’t hurt that Guillot got 14% of the black vote, and their turnout intensity was roughly half that of whites (white turnout was 37%, while black turnout was 20%).

District 7 covers southwest Louisiana, and in this case, you had a 12 year Democratic incumbent (Dale Bayard) quietly switch parties earlier this year, despite his being considered favorable to teachers unions. Nevertheless, he was another Grigsby target, and Republican political newcomer Holly Boffy soundly defeated Bayard 67-33%. Not only did Boffy carry every parish, but she even prevailed 63-37% in Bayard’s home parish of Calcasieu (Lake Charles).

Runoffs:

District 2 is one of two black majority districts. The district includes New Orleans and some of the River Parishes. Two term incumbent Louella Givens (who herself defeated an incumbent in 2003) trailed challenger Kira Orange Jones 39-31%. Jones, who sported the endorsements of Senator (and New Orleans native) Mary Landrieu and the Alliance for Good Government, also was helped by the legal and tax problems of Givens (she had a DWI arrest and a 1.3 million dollar tax lien placed on her house). This is an interesting exhibition of the black community’s growing independence from the teachers unions, who lined up behind Givens. Givens had a tepid 37-36% lead in the black precincts (a slightly larger 41-33% in New Orleans), while with the white vote, Jones led 63-14%. Givens is in trouble in the runoff.

District 8 is the second black majority district that includes the black communities in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, as well as some rural parishes with a significant black population. This was an open seat, and four candidates (three of whom are black) ran. Despite the fact that Domoine Rutledge (attorney for the EBR School System) had the support of the teachers unions, he finished last with 21%. Making the runoff were Carolyn Hill (a black Democrat who is a certified social worker and is pro school reform) and Independent Jimmy Guillory. This was an interesting race because Hill ran without the support of teachers unions and traditional black political groups; instead, she built a biracial coalition. She is in a strong position for the runoff.

Finally, the champion of reform was incumbent Republican Chas Roemer (District 6 incumbent), who was strongly backed by Grigsby. Though forced into a runoff with a 45-29% lead over Democrat Donald Songy, the remaining 26% of the voters supported a Republican, and Roemer only needs a fraction of that vote to win. In fact, his runoff strategy is simple: (1) add to his already large 56-26% lead over Songy in East Baton Rouge Parish (not too tough to do, since the East Baton Rouge precincts in the district are 14% black), (2) consolidate the Republican vote in the suburban/rural parishes along I-12, where Roemer only led 38-25% (the other Republican received the remaining 36%).

In conclusion, there were several interesting features about the BESE races this year: (1) without a contested governor’s race to distract voters, the conservative nature of Louisianians finally made itself apparent in these races, (2) the fact that pro school choice/educational reform candidates had the resources to compete for the first time, and (3) the reality (apparent from the data) that blacks are no longer a rock solid part of the traditional Democratic coalition (unions, government employees, blacks, and trial lawyers) in Louisiana, and in fact are receptive to reform minded candidates.

We had noted before that there was a sense that the Louisiana Democratic Party, which as recently as 2005 controlled every statewide office, would be irrelevant in this year’s political climate.  And Republican legislative victories in areas that once gave Edwin Edwards over 70% of the vote, combined with a deluge of party switches in the wake of the 2010 elections, added to that prevailing wisdom. This was the political context for the aggressive targeting from  Senator Vitter and Governor Jindal of Democratic open seats and/or incumbent Democratic legislators. Additionally, the TEA Party targeted Republican legislators they thought were not sufficiently conservative. Were they successful?

Senate

In the Louisiana Senate, no incumbent Democrat was defeated outside of reapportionment (although two term incumbent Ben Nevers of Bogalusa was held to 51%). And for that matter, no incumbent Republican legislator was defeated either, despite the efforts of the TEA Party. In fact, the closest Republican race was that of two term incumbent Bob Kostelka, who was held to 52%, even though the TEA Party was not explicitly involved in that race.

From a partisan perspective, the balance in the Senate is set now at 24 Republicans and 15 Democrats. There are four runoffs remaining: two are in black district districts in Shreveport and Lafayette/Opelousas where former incumbents are seeking a comeback. A third runoff is in a newly created black majority district in the River Parishes. The final runoff is a Republican on Republican race along the Texas border where an incumbent backed by Governor Jindal faces the former occupant of the seat. Though the district gave 76% of the vote to Governor Jindal, the balance of power is in the 25% who voted for the Democrat, so this will be an interesting runoff to watch.

House

The partisan picture is less clear in the House. Just like the Senate, no incumbent of either party lost outside of reapportionment, even though the Republicans targeted several Democratic seats. As of right now, 49 Republicans have been elected (a majority is 53 out of 105 members), as have 34 Democrats and an Independent (“Dee” Richard of Thibodaux). If you include the 21 runoffs where you have Republican/Republican or Democrat/Democrat races, the partisan balance becomes 54 Republicans, 41 Democrats, and an Independent. Depending on the outcome of the runoffs, you are looking at a Republican delegation of between 54 and 62 Republicans (the current breakdown is 57 Republicans, 46 Democrats, and 2 Independents).

Looking ahead

Even though the GOP’s targeting efforts did not seem to produce the windfall they hoped for (arguably, party switchers removed most of the “low hanging fruit”), the GOP still has time on their side: their best strategy is to use term limits and/or vacated Democratic seats as their source of additional legislative seats. For instance, Senator Ben Nevers (D-Bogalusa) was re-elected with 51% of the vote, and his district voted 66-28% for David Vitter. He is term limited in 2015. His seat should be the Republicans’ top priority, particularly since his district contains parts of St Tammany and Tangipahoa that are seeing a steady influx of decidedly Republican residents from Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

On the House side, there are three GOP favorable seats whose Democratic incumbents are term limited: Jim Fannin (D-Jonesboro), Mickey Guillory (D-Eunice), and Harold Ritchie (D-Bogalusa). All three of these districts gave David Vitter over 60% of the vote and should be the Republicans’ top priority for pickups.

Enter the black Republicans

As a final thought, six black Republicans ran for legislative seats. How did they fare ? While none of them were elected (or even made the runoff), their performance last night was promising: all got between 14 and 26% of the vote, and if you allow for the fact that a house district in Baton Rouge had two black Republicans running, that district gave 30% of its vote to a black Republican. So while the efforts seem fruitless this year, this is light years ahead of 2007, when three black Republicans ran for the legislature, and all received between 8 and 12% of the vote. In other words, by the time the next reapportionment election comes around (and maybe even before that), black Republicans will be viable politically in Louisiana.

In the interest of space, we will discuss in the next installment the BESE races and how Baton  Rouge contractor Lane Grigsby is someone who has established himself on the political scene by accomplishing something that has continually eluded conservative/business interests in the past.

Statewide elected officials

The conventional wisdom after qualifying was that “Democrats need not apply” for elected office. This was largely true at the statewide level (we will later discuss how this was NOT the case with legislative races). Democrats essentially sat out on the statewide elections: no Democrat of any significance (i.e., an elected official or a public figure) filed for a statewide office, and in two races (Lt Governor and Secretary of State) Republicans were left to fight it out amongst themselves.

Governor Bobby Jindal was the big winner last night: he was re-elected with an astounding 66% of the vote. He carried all 64 parishes, and in 59 of those parishes, he received an absolute majority. This is a record percentage for a Republican governor – not even Mike Foster attained that percentage in his 1999 re-election. When you examine the data at a more granular level, you begin to appreciate that this was not a broad based landslide. The first noteworthy number (from an examination of selected precincts across the state) was the 19% of the black vote Jindal received. This is certainly impressive for a Republican, although it didn’t hurt that their 19% turnout was significantly less than the overall statewide turnout of 36%. The second item of interest was that, buried in the landslide, was the governor’s unenthusiastic reception from parishes with a large number of state workers (particularly prison employees). In his home parish of East Baton Rouge, for instance, his 51% of the vote was actually a decrease in support relative to his 2007 performance. Similarly, in the Felicianas, he received about 50%, while in Avoyelles, he received 43% (Vitter defeated Melancon 56-36% there last year).

Jindal 2011 By Parish

The next race of interest was the Lt Governor’s race. Incumbent Republican Jay Dardenne was elected to the position in 2010 after its former incumbent was elected Mayor of New Orleans. In this race, Dardenne turned back a stiff (and well funded) challenge from fellow Republican Billy Nungesser. What was interesting about this race was that many Republican activists were vocally opposed to the incumbent, and Nungesser spent a significant amount of money getting on the election day ballots that are a commonplace on Election Day in many black neighborhoods across the state. In 2011, this action gained him little: in the parishes we examined, Dardenne received 51% of the black vote. He (Dardenne) also received a strong 64% of the vote out of the Baton Rouge area, where he has been a familiar presence for decades (he was first elected to public office in 1988; before that, he was on the Labor Day Telethon for years).

So how did Dardenne win? In addition to the 51% of the black vote he received, he had the benefit of a broad base of support (he carried 46 parishes). Nungesser did carry every parish in the New Orleans media market and just about everything along the coast between New Orleans and the Mermentau River. But that was the extent of his electoral appeal, which understandably was a natural offshoot of his television exposure after the oil spill.

Incumbent Secretary of State Tom Schedler (who assumed the office when Jay Dardenne was elected Lt Governor in 2010) was the apparent winner by a razor thin 8,500 vote margin over term limited House Speaker Jim Tucker. This was another two Republican race.

Further down the ballot, the incumbent commissioner of agriculture and insurance (who were both Republicans) were comfortably re-elected with 67% of the vote against minor opposition. The remaining incumbents (again, all Republicans) were re-elected without opposition.

In our next installment, we will discuss the BESE and legislative races. One item we plan to discuss: why was Baton Rouge contractor Lane Grigsby the biggest winner last night?