Maybe it’s a sign of insecurity or an attempt to feel good after innumerable recent beatdowns, but the hold by Democrats of House District 60 in its recent election is much ado about nothing.
This weekend, Democrat Iberville Parish Councilor Chasity Martinez won comfortably over Republican Brad Daigle, who serves on the Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission. This set off some cries of jubilation on the left, both in and out of state, as GOP Pres. Donald Trump had won the district, about two-thirds in Iberville and the remainder in Assumption Parishes, by double-digits in 2024.
But don’t buy that this has any import regarding partisan political fortunes beyond that district. There’s a reason that the district never has elected a Republican, beginning with it is just about the last bastion in the state outside of New Orleans with significant white voter support for Democrats. By way of example, for the Iberville Parish Council only a single Republican was elected along with Martinez in 2023 where she defeated a long-time Democrat incumbent, in a parish almost evenly divided between black and white voters and where Trump’s ticket gained a bare majority a year later.
District 60 isn’t too much different, with the white electorate only 55 percent. Previous Democrat incumbent Chad Brown after his initial 2015 win didn’t face competition the next two cycles, in part because he voted consistently towards the ideological center. Over his last six years he scored an average of 52 on the Louisiana Legislature Log’s scorecard (the 2025 edition belatedly is out, by the way), considerably above the Democrat House average of 23.
So, a moderate Democrat can win this district, and Martinez as a candidate didn’t mouth direct leftist platitudes, if she said anything meaningful at all. As said a strategist who works with Democrats including her, pushing local issues, which avoids bringing in the national issues that at present work favorably for Republicans in Louisiana, was the strategy employed on her behalf.
That doesn’t mean that she won’t veer hard left when in office, as part of the fraudulent game played by white Louisiana Democrats outside of larger cities who pose as one thing to get elected and govern as something did, a tactic worked to perfection by Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards. But Brown’s voting history and the fact that the area otherwise votes (if narrowly) for Republicans for offices higher in stature means any hew from the center endangers her return in two years.
Her not winning the race would have sprung the surprise. And if she plans to run and win again, she’ll need to thread the needle as did Brown. Thinking otherwise feeds a fantasy that will keep Louisiana Democrats as the decisively minority party in the state.
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