Louisiana Politics: Rural parishes represent a hurdle in runoffs
Several rural parishes that supported Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2015 are now solidly in the corner of GOP challenger Eddie Rispone, or are at least leaning his way, creating what could become a critical roadblock for the incumbent’s reelection campaign.
In the 2015 primary, Edwards managed to win the most primary votes in 23 rural parishes that former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu lost in 2014. While black voters were a driving force in his memorable election, it was also the country vote that helped Edwards cross the finish line.
(Those parishes were Jackson, Webster, Avoyelles, Union, Winn, Ouachita, Franklin, Richland, Lincoln, Catahoula, West Feliciana, Washington, Tangipahoa, St. Charles, Livingston, Ascension, St. Mary, Jeff Davis, Calcasieu, Beauregard, Allen, Evangeline and Rapides.)
After the recent primary vote, Rispone has either won or turned competitive 11 of those rural parishes, gathering a total of 116,000 votes to Edwards’ 156,000.
Rispone flipped five outright, including the parishes of Beauregard, Jefferson Davis, Livingston, Union and Webster. He lost another by less than 100 votes (Allen) and another five by less than 1,000 votes (Ascension, Catahoula, Evangeline, Jackson and St. Mary).
At this point, however, Rispone has merely made this segment of the runoff competitive. He’s down by 40,000 votes in these 23 rural parishes. Moreover, Edwards won Calcasieu, Tangipahoa and Rapides by more than 6,000 votes each, and enjoyed a more than 11,000 vote lead in Ouachita.
What’s not factored in here is where the votes of Congressman Ralph Abraham, the race’s third-place finisher from north Louisiana, will go, although it doesn’t take much imagination to see many of them landing at Rispone’s feet.
While every prognosticator around will tell you that Edwards has to increase black turnout in the runoff, these numbers from rural parishes show he has other problems as well. The governor has got to go into these rural parishes and grab the totals he pulled down in 2015.
That’s no easy task along the countryside, where folks have to “drive into town” to vote.
Then again, Edwards remembers those back country roads well. (His favorite XM station is Willie’s Roadhouse.) The real question is whether voters there will remember him.
Political History: Edwards
(the First) loses (sort of)
This week marks the 32nd anniversary (Oct. 24, 1987) of three-term Gov. Edwin Edwards losing his throne to then-Congressman Buddy Roemer.
Technically, Edwards didn’t lose anything. He advanced to the runoff besides Roemer, although trailing 33 percent to 27 percent.
What Edwards did do, however, was resign from the race. That was a better option than getting tossed by voters.
EWE made his decision known that evening, to a crowd of “weeping family and friends,” according to The Shreveport Times.
Two days later The Washington Post published another article with this headline: “EDWARDS CUTS HIS LOSSES.” Here are the first three paragraphs:
The Edwin Edwards era ended in stunning fashion early this morning when Louisiana’s bon temps governor, reading the long odds against him, withdrew from his reelection race after finishing second in the bipartisan primary behind Rep. Charles E. (Buddy) Roemer III, a young, conservative, reform-conscious Democrat from Shreveport.
As a result of Edwards’ decision, there will be no runoff in November, and Roemer, who three weeks ago was running last in a five-man race, woke up this morning as governor-elect, preparing for his move next March to the white mansion in Baton Rouge.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable. I’m still not over it,” Roemer said today in a telephone interview from his Shreveport hotel room, referring both to his meteoric rise and the Democratic governor’s unexpected withdrawal. “An era is over, but let’s give Edwin Edwards this much credit: He came in with class in 1971 and he went out with class.”
Edwards, of course, wasn’t exactly down for the count. He, of course, made another comeback in 1991, besting David Duke at the polls in the so-called “Race From Hell.”
They said it
“Now, if this doesn’t happen, don’t quote me on it, but normally I can tell by the text message I get from the coach whether they’re going to win. I’m serious. If he doesn’t feel really good about their preparation and stuff, I kind of get a sense of it. He tells me that they are ready to play tonight and that we are going to win. When he tells me that, we always win.” —Gov. John Bel Edwards, on his communications with Coach Ed Orgeron, in Sports Illustrated
“So how do I handle it? Sometimes I laugh and I have laughter like that. Some people now that—we’re kind of not past what happened—we’re rebuilding and we’re getting our basic end, when I come in to argue, sometimes they say, ‘You’re just like Hurricane Katrina, you just storm in a room.’” —Sen.-elect Katrina Jackson, on being named Katrina in Louisiana, in LifeNews.com
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