ANALYSIS — With former Rep. Jeff Landry’s victory in Louisiana over the weekend, Republicans flipped a governor’s office from blue to red. Typically, that’s a big deal, but it doesn’t tell us much about what could happen in 2024 and it’s a reminder to proceed with caution when extrapolating off-year results onto the following year’s races.
Democrats were running on borrowed time in Louisiana. John Bel Edwards was a talented and legitimately moderate Democrat who had the fortune of running against flawed or underwhelming Republicans twice, including former Sen. David Vitter in 2015. With Edwards unable to run for reelection because of term limits, the governorship was ripe for the GOP picking and Republicans were favored to win from the outset.
The two Democratic candidates collectively underperformed by about 10 points, but it was the non-Landry Republicans’ dismal showing that allowed the former congressman to win a majority in Saturday’s all-party primary and avoid a runoff. There could be concern about low Democratic turnout if that ends up being a trend into 2024, but the state and national Democratic parties did not invest in the Louisiana race.
