Edwards acknowledges reality, smacks Democrats

He may be out to lunch on desirable policy preferences and not exactly honest, but Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards knows how to spot whether a campaign is winnable, to the chagrin of Louisiana Democrats and perhaps the delight of Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Edwards bludgeoned the fantasies of some in his party when this week he declared he would not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2026. He was the last Democrat to win statewide office, leading to the wild hope that he would enter the race and, as in both his gubernatorial victories in 2015 and 2019, keep out of the way as internecine Republican battles could permit him to sneak into office.

That became a pipe dream when, during his second term, Edwards took off the mask and showed his true leftist ideologue self. He won twice because he was a fraud, trying to convey the impression he was some kind of centrist, even conservative (only in the context of the extremists controlling his party nationally) while governing from left-of-center to the far left, depending on the issue, carrying himself as a blank slate in his first campaign and in his first term keeping in the dark or fooling enough people who didn’t follow closely enough politics to narrowly gain reelection.

Don't sleep on Seabaugh DA victory chances

Don’t write off the chances of Republican state Sen. Alan Seabaugh to become the next First District Attorney in 2027.

This week, Seabaugh will announce formally that he will purse the job of Caddo Parish district attorney, despite the fact that incumbent Democrat James Stewart, even if getting a bit long in the tooth by the end of the term when he will be approaching 80, shows every sign of seeking reelection. The news was met by some disparaging his chances.

That may not be a good bet. The uphill road that Seabaugh, or any white Republican, has to face is the parish as of late has turned to electing black Democrats, given that voter registration totals in the parish show whites with a majority of about 500 out of nearly 145,000 registrants in he foreground of a history of little black crossover voting but greater, if still small, white crossover voting. Stewart gained the office in a special election in 2015 over a white Republican but was reelected even more comfortably in 2020 over a white Democrat, while the only other parish-wide office focusing on public safety, sheriff, saw in 2024 a narrow win by black Democrat Henry Whitehorn over white Republican John Nickelson.

LA can't guarantee new House map for 2026

Louisiana can increase its chances of having congressional elections occur under new rules for 2026, but there’s no way it can guarantee that given the jurisprudence and timing of elections.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear whether statute and the Constitution conflict on drawing district boundaries. If so decided, that means the state can engage in a mid-cycle reapportionment to return the state to having only one of six majority-minority districts as opposed to two that the state felt forced to implement by previous judicial rulings for 2024.

To permit such a scenario for 2026 elections, the state must change its federal election dates. Already, petitioning for ballot access has begun for party primary elections scheduled Apr. 18, but unless the Court rules relatively quickly that would make changing boundaries to meet existing deadlines impossible. The deadline to turn in a petition to make a party primary ballot is four months prior to the election.