If you want excitement out of Louisiana elections
this fall, you’re only hope is a pair of congressional contests that originally
would have been settled by now as well.
The state’s six congressional elections found themselves rescheduled and reformatted after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the previous districts unconstitutional, but time was running short. Additionally, Republican Rep. Julia Letlow forwent her Fifth District seat to win the GOP nomination for the Senate, meaning she will win by at least double-digits in the fall.
So too will the party’s nominees for three Supreme Court slots (technically, already elected), two Public Service Commission spots, a seat on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and three of the six congressional districts. The Democrats will triumph only in a single House district.
That leaves the two others that will produce a Republican, the question now being, who? Two data points can help on that account: how much money they had raised as of the last campaign finance report filed mid-year and for how long they have been running (stretched by the initial need to compete in party primary elections May 16, but dispensed with after the court ruling)?
For the Sixth, basically wrapped around Baton Rouge and points southwest and northeast, two names stand out. State Sens. Rick Edmonds and Blake Miguez have been running for months, with the former having raised over half a million dollars and retaining over half, while the latter has pulled in over $6 million and having over $2 million left. However, despite his big monetary advantage, Miguez will have to fight off the impression he is a mercenary, having only bought a residence in the district a few months ago. Both have quality conservative credentials.
They may have to fight for a runoff spot against a Democrat. While Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards has endorsed Democrat former high-level bureaucrat Pat Forbes, a nod which will draw some support but ensure he can’t win against a Republican, Democrat former Metro Councilor Chauna Banks also jumped in. There hasn’t been a race-based or economic redistribution issue that she hasn’t sounded off from the far left on for the past couple of decades (at present she has testified about a corruption probe into past and present councilors), so if she can consolidate the black vote (she is black while Forbes is white) she could ace either Edmonds or Miguez out of the runoff but lose it.
Wilder still may be the Fifth’s outcome. There, two large money-raisers that entered months ago, state Rep. Mike Echols and Board of Regents Chairwoman Misty Cordell remain in the race for the district in northeast Louisiana that also takes up a good chuck of the state’s central part and slips in some of the Florida parishes. But two other competitive Republicans, state Rep. Gabe Firment and state Sen. Stewart Cathey, also got in after the new district was drawn, although not much before campaign finance reports were due.
Firment is the only one not from around Monroe, based just north of Alexandria which might give him a leg up over the other three since they could split the northeastern vote. However, Echols would appear to have the upper hand as he has raised $3 million and still has a million bucks left, way more than anybody else.
Yet he and all others could run second in the general election. That’s as at the last minute Democrat state Rep, Pat Moore signed up as the only significant candidate of her party to file. With so many serious GOP candidates divvying up conservative votes, she could consolidate the black vote (she is black) and even finish first. However, like Banks in the Sixth if making the runoff, she has no chance of winning.
Regardless, that these black Democrats can push a Republican out of the runoff creates incentive for the GOP contenders to prove as much as possible their conservative credentials (which none lack), as that base is the Republicans in the electorate biggest segment. As a result, more conservative policy promises will be made to win these contests.
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