The Hayride website commissioned a survey on a variety
of issues and contests, including this fall’s secretary of state contest and
next year’s governor and lieutenant governor races. It was done over two nights
last week with 1,615 likely voters responding.
MacAoidh has reviewed the results thoroughly here,
but some points need amplification. While Republican incumbent Kyle Ardoin expectedly leads in an SOS
field at 13 percent with Democrat former SOS administrator Renee Free expectedly running second at 10
percent with about half the respondents expectedly undecided, the surprise
comes in the form of (tied for) third placing GOP Turkey Creek Mayor Heather Cloud at 8 percent.
Thus, the chief executive of a village in central Louisiana with a few hundred inhabitants and despite a relatively late start is running with or exceeding efforts made a former state senator and two current state representatives of her party from major urban areas. Part of this has to do with financing, as Cloud lent herself over $100,000 to kickstart her candidacy.
Still, her competitors have hit the hustings and airwaves
as well and have raised significant dollars, yet have trouble at this point
keeping up with her. Perhaps her own compelling
story as a victim of election fraud (she fingers Ardoin as reluctant to
pursue tightening the laws in this regard) has caught people’s attention; the
SOS oversees elections.
This result could vault her in the upper echelon of
candidates. By scoring a comparatively good number, this may encourage doors
skeptical of a tiny-town mayor’s chances to win that she has the goods to
succeed.
By contrast, the numbers for Republican Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser show a candidacy in
trouble. Past state legal seconds-in-command most often leave office chasing
the governorship; only a couple ever have lost (in the 1974 Constitution era).
Nungesser looks set to join that minority, with only 37 percent of the sample
saying they would reelect him while 42 percent prefer somebody else.
Historically, when someone replies to a survey he wants
“someone new” in an office, in almost every instance that’s a death knell to
capturing that person’s vote. There’s little chance, especially in such a
low-profile office, that Nungesser can do anything to win back these people
over the next year and a few weeks. Term-limited legislators must have started
salivated when they saw these numbers.
The same dynamic doesn’t bode well for Democrat
Gov. John Bel Edwards,
either. With numbers of definitely reelect at 43 percent but wanting someone
new at 46 percent, there’s no optimistic way to spin that. With the highest
profile position in state government, that affords him some opportunities to
change minds. But given as well the undecided almost always break for a
challenger or don’t vote, this suggests a ceiling of around 45 percent for him
next year unless he gets a miraculously large number of chances to turn things
around.
Even worse for him, while predictably large proportions
of Republicans want someone new but most Democrats say they’ll tap the screen
for him – although other numbers imply only about half of white Democrats agreed
with that – Edwards as this point has more independent and other party
respondents hankering for a new face than who want to keep him. And at least
one new face – GOP Sen. John Kennedy – would
defeat Edwards decisively, according to the data.
MacAoidh wonders whether a general desire in the
electorate to challenge established figures doesn’t drive what the poll numbers
indicate. Regardless whether this, policy, or something else explains the
current results, a shakeup of the existing order at this point does seem more
likely than not.
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