Republicans dominated in the Louisiana gubernatorial election on Saturday, the party’s first victory in a Louisiana governor’s race since 2011. Is this victory a one-off overperformance, or the first ripple of a red wave in the other key elections of 2023?
Summary
Republicans dominated in the Louisiana gubernatorial election on Saturday, the party’s first victory in a Louisiana governor’s race since 2011. Is this victory a one-off overperformance, or the first ripple of a red wave in the other key elections of 2023?
- Attorney General Jeff Landry won the all-party jungle primary with 51.6 percent of the popular vote, while Democratic frontrunner Shawn Wilson mustered a mere 25.9 percent of the vote.
- Landry is the first Louisiana gubernatorial candidate to win outright in 12 years. His victory flips the governor’s mansion from blue to red after Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ eight-year tenure.
- Landry did not only have to run against a Democrat – he defeated other leading GOP candidates Stephen Waguespack, John Schroder, and Sharon Hewitt along with minor candidates running on the GOP line.
- All the Republican candidates combined for 65.5 percent of the vote, while the two Democratic candidates polled a combined 28.5 percent. Failing to break the 30 percent mark is a dismal result for the incumbent party and an indication Louisiana voters were keen to move in a new direction.
- Landry has served as Louisiana Attorney General since 2016 and previously served one term in Congress. He was elected to Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010 and has was endorsed by the state party establishment and former President Donald Trump.
- Louisiana is the first of three states to hold gubernatorial elections in 2023. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, is seeking a second term. Attorney General Daniel Cameron, his Trump-endorsed challenger, is trailing in recent polling but hopes to pull off an upset.
- In Mississippi, GOP Gov. Tate Reeves is running for reelection against Brandon Presley, a state Public Service Commissioner and cousin of Elvis Presley. Reeves polls ahead of Presley in most surveys but Presley outraised Reeves in the most recent reporting period.
- In addition, Virginia and New Jersey will hold state legislative elections this fall. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s Republican chief executive, has made flipping the House of Delegates from blue to red a top priority and hopes to secure a Republican-led legislature for the last two years of his term.
- In New Jersey, Republicans hope to capitalize on the recent federal indictment of Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and build on their successes from the 2021 state legislative races to narrow Democrats’ margins in the State House and Senate.
- CNN observed that the Louisiana election “represented the GOP’s best chance of winning back a gubernatorial seat this fall after a disappointing 2022 midterms, which saw the party lose a net of two governorships.”
- The Washington Post elaborated that Landry campaigned “on a tough-on-crime platform and has consistently pushed conservative policies in the state, including a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth and a near-total abortion ban. The state’s contentious abortion ban has no exemptions for rape or incest.”
- The New York Times reported some Republicans are using the Virginia elections as a “dry run” for the 2024 election. As the Times noted, “In 2021, after Republican victories in Virginia, conservative activists were so proud of their work training poll watchers, recruiting election workers and making other attempts to subtly influence the voting system that they wrote a memo called ‘The Virginia Model.’ The memo detailed ways that other states could follow Virginia’s lead in protecting so-called election integrity. Now these activists are turning their attention back to Virginia.”
- The Wall Street Journal noted Landry’s outright victory means Republicans now have unified control of 23 state governments, compared to 17 controlled by Democrats. Ten states have divided government.
- The New York Post observed that Landry “has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, the state’s near-total abortion ban that doesn’t have exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and a law restricting youths’ access to ‘sexually explicit material’ in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.”
- Fox News noted that Democratic candidate “Wilson received an endorsement from Bel Edwards early in the race, and told Fox News Digital earlier this week that his experience working across the aisle showed he had the ability to govern over a state made up largely of conservatives despite being a Democrat. Bel Edwards served two terms and maintained an above-water popularity under the same circumstances.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
