Louisiana Goes Republican!

Democrats slept on this race and the Republicans won.

The Deep South has Republican governors. 

Republicans managed to reclaim Louisiana after the state attorney general Jeff Landry surpassed the 51 percent threshold. The state has an open jungle primary where it does not matter who is on the ballot, the candidates who achieves the most advances.

Since Landry achieved the threshold he becomes governor-elect.

Landry competed alongside more than a dozen other people in the jungle primary, in which candidates appear on the same ballot regardless of party. If no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote, the race would have headed to a runoff between the top two vote-getters. But because Landry won more than half the vote as of late Saturday night, he is projected to win the race outright.

Democrats did not put money into this race. The state is too Republican and despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to redraw the state's congressional district map, Louisiana refuses to do it and now with a Republican governor, it will be a longtime of legal wrangling before they finally get a fair representation map.

Nonetheless, Black voters must of supported Landry. I said that Black men are not reliable to the Democrats. More Black men are voting Republican. 

Damn shame.

Landry, a hard-right Republican with the backing of Washed Up 45 was widely viewed as the favorite heading into Saturday, many political observers expected him to face off against Democrat Shawn Wilson for a second round of voting in November.

His strong showing on Saturday gives the GOP — and in particular the party’s conservative, populist wing — a sense of momentum heading into November, where the party is looking to win in two other red-state gubernatorial elections, in Kentucky and Mississippi.

Landry will succeed Gov. John Bel Edwards, the only sitting Democratic governor in the Deep South, who is term-limited. Bel Edwards was a conservative Democrat.

Wilson, Landry’s chief opponent and a former Transportation secretary, was running to become Louisiana’s first Black statewide elected official since Reconstruction. But observers acknowledged the challenges he faced, especially in regards to voter turnout.

“Democratic turnout has been weak,” Louisiana-based pollster John Couvillon told The Hill earlier this week.

“Normally, early voting tends to favor Democrats, and Republicans as of Saturday night cumulatively have a plus-5 lead,” said Couvillon, who usually works with Republicans.

Chief among the warning signs was low turnout among Black voters, a key constituency for Democrats in the Pelican State.

Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, criticized members of the Democratic Party for not putting more resources into the race.

“There’s really no discussion, and more importantly, very little lack of investment in voter mobilization,” Albright told The Hill. “That includes the party itself not putting a lot into this election, which, unfortunately, is a pattern that we’re seeing in Southern states in general and particularly in states that have Black candidates.” 

In order to get an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there has to be 34 states to ratify.

That means 2/3 of states. 

Republicans control 27 states and have the potential to flip Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and New Mexico. If the Republicans managed to win a majority in state legislature and governorships, they can fundamentally change the U.S. Constitution.