As Louisiana leftists continue to move through their stages of grief over this year’s statewide election, they pursue yet another narrative that fails under the cold hard light of data.
So far, liberals among Democrats, within the media, and in academia have tried to comfort themselves over their blowout losses that leave perhaps the most conservative governor, Legislature, and Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in history about to take over. They do this by telling themselves they delivered their message poorly – when in reality it’s the message itself at fault – and by bolstering themselves over the illusion that outgoing Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards had notable lasting accomplishments – only if you believe during his years in office fewer jobs, fewer people choosing to work, many fewer residents, tepid personal income growth well behind most states, pandemic policy that cost more lives than preserved, and government growing at three times the rate of inflation are good things.
The other narrative is that the victory of Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry to replace Edwards, as well as legislative gains, is somehow less legitimate because overall turnout was the lowest since 2011 (slightly lower in the general election, slightly higher in the runoff). You have journalists and academicians propagating that “apathy” suggests there isn’t a groundswell to follow diametrically different options than with which Edwards tried to outflank the GOP-run Legislature.
Of course, the very reference to 2011, when voters decisively swept incumbent Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal into power again, betrays the poverty of the argument. Back then, nobody questioned an even lower turnout didn’t signify extremely positive reviews of Jindal’s conservative agenda, so why is slightly higher turnout this year any less a sign of a healthy majority in the electorate backing ideologically-similar issue preferences?
And their interpretation isn’t backed by the data from the eight state office election cycles from 2011-23. Most saliently, 2011 and 2023 featured Jindal’s and Landry’s win in the general elections, differentiating these from closer 2015 and 2019 contests when Edwards went to runoffs before winning. Understanding the role turnout played requires breaking down turnout into groups of whites, blacks, white Democrats, and Republicans.
In 2011, whites participated in the general election at about 10 percentage points higher than blacks, while white Democrats were 6.5 higher than whites as a whole and 4 points higher than Republicans. For the runoff, the gap between races fell to less than 7 percent with white Democrats 5 points higher than all whites and 3 points higher than Republicans.
But in 2023, whites as a whole voted at almost the same rates as they had in both 2011 contests (almost 2 points higher in the 2023 runoff) while blacks voted 2.5 points lower in the general election and almost a point lower in the runoff at 17.77 percent, with these two figures the lowest since at least 1995 and likely the lowest in over six decades. This put blacks at 12.5 points below whites for the general election and 9 points lower in the runoff. Also in 2023, Republicans outvoted white Democrats by 4 points in the general election and by 2 points in the runoff – an artifact of the fact that a dozen years earlier many more Republican voters masqueraded in registration as white Democrats, as the latter’s proportion has fallen from 23.8 to 13.3 percent of the electorate since.
Contrast these numbers with the 2015 and 2019 elections. Whites averaged about 8.5 points higher than blacks in the general elections but fewer than 3 for the runoffs, while white Democrats and Republicans over both were about even in turnout. And overall, the competitive 2015 general election voting was only about 3 points higher than for 2023 while the ultra-competitive 2019 contest was almost 10 points higher.
In short, 2023 general election turnout of the Republican base, whites with few blacks, was better than in 2011, about as it was in 2015, but behind compared to 2019. By contrast, that turnout of the base for Democrats, mostly blacks with some whites, dropped some from 2011, substantially from 2015, and precipitously from 2019. The pattern largely replicated when comparing runoffs.
Simply, in 2023 almost all of the GOP base showed up, but Democrats’ base went missing to a significant degree. Too many of the latter found their candidates and their issue preferences unappealing and stayed home.
Not everybody has ignored this, such as Louisiana Weekly’s Christopher Tidmore who correctly noted if black turnout had matched some previous elections, maybe Democrats could have pulled an upset in a statewide race and perhaps won a few more legislative seats. But too many other journalists, partisans, and academicians on the left would rather lick their wounds by fantasizing that somehow Landry and conservatives don’t have a mandate moving forward.
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