What went wrong in yesterday’s election in Louisiana?

| 2:41 pm EDT October 15, 2023
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The Republicans won big in yesterday’s election in Louisiana. The state had been represented by a Democratic Governor, but he’s now been replaced with a Republican Governor. This is prompting all kinds of takes on how and why things went so horribly wrong in Louisiana for the Democrats. But these takes overlook the facts.

Louisiana is a red state, and it’s been trending red for awhile. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards is one of those Democrats who’s uniquely popular in an otherwise red state. But he was term limited and couldn’t run for reelection, so that was that. The experts all had this race pegged for the Republicans based on voting demographics, and that’s what happened.

The national Democratic Party didn’t put significant resources into the Louisiana election because it knew it had no chance of competing anyway. Instead the Democratic Party is correctly putting its resources into the very winnable high stakes election in Virginia in three weeks.

So you can safely ignore all these doomsday takes about how the Democratic Party is supposedly in trouble because it lost an election yesterday that it was supposed to lose. That’s just opportunistic nonsense from pundits who are trying to get booked on TV. But if you don’t like the taste of losing, get involved in the upcoming Virginia election, no matter what state you live in. You can donate to the Democrats running in competitive races in Virginia at this ActBlue link.