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| John Bel Edwards Wasn’t a Soul Mate, but a Perfect Match in Louisiana | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| NEW ORLEANS — On Saturday, John Bel Edwards, the governor of Louisiana, beat the Trump-aligned Republican businessman Eddie Rispone in a tight race, winning a second term, thanks in large part to a boost from tightly concentrated but highly populated deep-blue precincts in the southeast. Especially here in New Orleans, where nearly 50 percent of voters turned out — the highest level in years — and handed 90 percent of their votes to the incumbent. | |
| I spent the morning of the election reporting from a precinct in the Treme neighborhood. By 11 a.m., the “I Voted” stickers were gone. | I spent the morning of the election reporting from a precinct in the Treme neighborhood. By 11 a.m., the “I Voted” stickers were gone. |
| Mr. Edwards’s win — even more so than recent Democratic wins in Kentucky and Virginia — is a testimony to the limits of President Trump’s positive sway on Republican candidates who hug him tight in red states. He visited Louisiana three times during the race, twice in the last 10 days, to try to push Mr. Rispone over the line to no avail. | |
| The main reason, though, that Mr. Edwards will hold his title as the only Democratic governor in the Deep South is perhaps threefold — and it carries lessons applicable beyond the South as 2020 approaches. | The main reason, though, that Mr. Edwards will hold his title as the only Democratic governor in the Deep South is perhaps threefold — and it carries lessons applicable beyond the South as 2020 approaches. |
| One is that in more conservative states moderate candidates can still be sustainable Democratic nominees. As long as they have the well-crafted voter-turnout efforts that focus on the blunt need to run up the score in geographic strongholds — cities — as well as their demographic bases, which in Mr. Edwards’s case was African-American voters, who fueled Doug Jones’s upset Senate win in Alabama too. | One is that in more conservative states moderate candidates can still be sustainable Democratic nominees. As long as they have the well-crafted voter-turnout efforts that focus on the blunt need to run up the score in geographic strongholds — cities — as well as their demographic bases, which in Mr. Edwards’s case was African-American voters, who fueled Doug Jones’s upset Senate win in Alabama too. |
| The other lesson is that across-the-aisle allies still matter. In New Orleans’s biggest suburb, Jefferson Parish, the wildly popular former Sheriff Newell Normand, a Republican, came out unequivocally in favor of the incumbent governor. Mr. Edwards subsequently won these shifting suburbs (in which Barack Obama pulled barely a third of the vote in 2008) with 57 percent of the vote. | The other lesson is that across-the-aisle allies still matter. In New Orleans’s biggest suburb, Jefferson Parish, the wildly popular former Sheriff Newell Normand, a Republican, came out unequivocally in favor of the incumbent governor. Mr. Edwards subsequently won these shifting suburbs (in which Barack Obama pulled barely a third of the vote in 2008) with 57 percent of the vote. |
| In that, there’s a third lesson to be gleaned. As nationalized as our media environment has become, it’s still true in some cases that “all politics is local,” as the old phrase goes. | In that, there’s a third lesson to be gleaned. As nationalized as our media environment has become, it’s still true in some cases that “all politics is local,” as the old phrase goes. |
| If there were labs in which political strategists could concoct a politician with a policy profile and personal background perfectly matched with the chemistry of their state, then Democrats in a state like Louisiana — which is socially conservative, yet populist in a workaday way (dating back to the “Every Man a King” slogan of Huey Long) — would probably craft a candidate who looks, sounds and talks just like John Bel Edwards: A white, Catholic, West Point graduate who comes from a law-enforcement family, is married to a schoolteacher and is deeply skeptical of both abortion and gun control. | If there were labs in which political strategists could concoct a politician with a policy profile and personal background perfectly matched with the chemistry of their state, then Democrats in a state like Louisiana — which is socially conservative, yet populist in a workaday way (dating back to the “Every Man a King” slogan of Huey Long) — would probably craft a candidate who looks, sounds and talks just like John Bel Edwards: A white, Catholic, West Point graduate who comes from a law-enforcement family, is married to a schoolteacher and is deeply skeptical of both abortion and gun control. |
| When paired with his balancing of the wrecked budget left by his Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal, and his moves to protect working families, like his expansion of Medicaid or pay raises for teachers, Mr. Edwards is a heterodox mix that makes him ideologically and culturally palatable enough to attract substantial support from the sort of Louisianans whose support for Bill Clinton won him the state during his presidential runs in 1992 and 1996, but who have since been swayed by Republican positions on wedge issues. | When paired with his balancing of the wrecked budget left by his Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal, and his moves to protect working families, like his expansion of Medicaid or pay raises for teachers, Mr. Edwards is a heterodox mix that makes him ideologically and culturally palatable enough to attract substantial support from the sort of Louisianans whose support for Bill Clinton won him the state during his presidential runs in 1992 and 1996, but who have since been swayed by Republican positions on wedge issues. |
| The lingering influence of the state’s more malicious 1990s coalition, however, equally influenced the turnout of liberal whites and people of color. They voted this weekend with vivid memories of the dark pull of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, David Duke, who won about 60 percent of the white vote in the 1991 gubernatorial race. | The lingering influence of the state’s more malicious 1990s coalition, however, equally influenced the turnout of liberal whites and people of color. They voted this weekend with vivid memories of the dark pull of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, David Duke, who won about 60 percent of the white vote in the 1991 gubernatorial race. |
| He didn’t lose to a rising star in the Democratic Party nor a trusted veteran. He lost to the womanizing, infamously corrupt Gov. Edwin Edwards. “Vote for the crook. It’s important,” pro-Edwards bumper stickers read at the time. | He didn’t lose to a rising star in the Democratic Party nor a trusted veteran. He lost to the womanizing, infamously corrupt Gov. Edwin Edwards. “Vote for the crook. It’s important,” pro-Edwards bumper stickers read at the time. |
| John Bel Edwards is no crook. But he’s never been the avant-garde progressive who many in the national party base have come to not just hope for in candidates, but to expect. With the high stakes set in this race of Mr. Rispone — who was endorsed by Mr. Duke — serving as the alternative to Mr. Edwards, activists, everyday voters and political consultants alike weren’t shy about making the recent historical connections. | John Bel Edwards is no crook. But he’s never been the avant-garde progressive who many in the national party base have come to not just hope for in candidates, but to expect. With the high stakes set in this race of Mr. Rispone — who was endorsed by Mr. Duke — serving as the alternative to Mr. Edwards, activists, everyday voters and political consultants alike weren’t shy about making the recent historical connections. |
| A radio ad paid for by BOLD, the Black Organization for Leadership Development, and voiced by a New Orleans councilman, Jay H. Banks, asked, “What’s the difference between David Duke, Eddie Rispone and Donald Trump?” Mr. Banks then answers: “The only difference is that Rispone will be governor if you don’t stop him. These people are telling you every day that they do not care about you or anyone who looks like you.” | A radio ad paid for by BOLD, the Black Organization for Leadership Development, and voiced by a New Orleans councilman, Jay H. Banks, asked, “What’s the difference between David Duke, Eddie Rispone and Donald Trump?” Mr. Banks then answers: “The only difference is that Rispone will be governor if you don’t stop him. These people are telling you every day that they do not care about you or anyone who looks like you.” |
| (Mr. Edwards, for his part, said his campaign wasn’t involved and he called BOLD asking them to stop running the ads.) | (Mr. Edwards, for his part, said his campaign wasn’t involved and he called BOLD asking them to stop running the ads.) |
| Nonetheless, in the days leading up to the election, Mr. Duke himself appeared on the radio to reiterate his allegiance to Mr. Rispone, to Mr. Trump — who infamously struggled to forthrightly denounce Mr. Duke as a presidential candidate — and to defend his own legacy. “People say, ‘He’s irrelevant and he has no impact and all of these other things’,” he said, reminding listeners of the “landslide of white voters” who cast ballots for him. “There’s no question that I made an impact on politics” and, “I’m proud of that.” | Nonetheless, in the days leading up to the election, Mr. Duke himself appeared on the radio to reiterate his allegiance to Mr. Rispone, to Mr. Trump — who infamously struggled to forthrightly denounce Mr. Duke as a presidential candidate — and to defend his own legacy. “People say, ‘He’s irrelevant and he has no impact and all of these other things’,” he said, reminding listeners of the “landslide of white voters” who cast ballots for him. “There’s no question that I made an impact on politics” and, “I’m proud of that.” |
| I received a firsthand education in how the white majority here that voted for David Duke a generation ago haven’t all either passed away or been spiritually transformed. In 2016, I covered a protest in Jackson Square against Confederate monuments that were eventually removed in the city. I posted my story on Twitter and then was surprised to see Mr. Duke retweet it: “(((Katy Reckdahl))) at the Advocate wants to destroy our Louisiana & American history. Surprised?” | |
| My heart sank when I realized he was referring to my Twitter avatar, a photo of me with my mixed-race son. Within minutes, a deluge of his followers also commented. “Yeah, they send YOU to write articles about White cultural issues?” wrote one woman. Others called me a “degenerate” and a “race-mixing” you-know-what and instructed me to move “back to the Congo.” | My heart sank when I realized he was referring to my Twitter avatar, a photo of me with my mixed-race son. Within minutes, a deluge of his followers also commented. “Yeah, they send YOU to write articles about White cultural issues?” wrote one woman. Others called me a “degenerate” and a “race-mixing” you-know-what and instructed me to move “back to the Congo.” |
| On Sunday morning, Nia Weeks, the founder of Citizen SHE United, an advocacy group that focused on get-out-the-vote efforts among black women, celebrated the electoral victory and, when reflecting on the echoes of Mr. Duke drudged up, told me: “If the reality is that we bred him here, then the reality is, we can breed something different,” she said. | On Sunday morning, Nia Weeks, the founder of Citizen SHE United, an advocacy group that focused on get-out-the-vote efforts among black women, celebrated the electoral victory and, when reflecting on the echoes of Mr. Duke drudged up, told me: “If the reality is that we bred him here, then the reality is, we can breed something different,” she said. |
| Naturally, other progressive New Orleanians I’ve spoken to have grumbled about how it was more a fear of Eddie Rispone than a love of John Bel Edwards that forced their vote. | Naturally, other progressive New Orleanians I’ve spoken to have grumbled about how it was more a fear of Eddie Rispone than a love of John Bel Edwards that forced their vote. |
| Political consultant Westley Bayas III mostly wondered whether this win in weird old Louisiana can serve as a template for progressive voters in 2020 who may or may not have the fortune of supporting a liberal in the general election. “What we now see — from Virginia, Kentucky, and now Louisiana — is that there is a blueprint to beat Trumpism in state races,” Mr. Bayas said. “What we still have to figure out is if this same blueprint can beat Donald Trump himself next year.” | Political consultant Westley Bayas III mostly wondered whether this win in weird old Louisiana can serve as a template for progressive voters in 2020 who may or may not have the fortune of supporting a liberal in the general election. “What we now see — from Virginia, Kentucky, and now Louisiana — is that there is a blueprint to beat Trumpism in state races,” Mr. Bayas said. “What we still have to figure out is if this same blueprint can beat Donald Trump himself next year.” |
| Katy Reckdahl is a reporter, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The Hechinger Report, the New Orleans Advocate and other outlets. | Katy Reckdahl is a reporter, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The Hechinger Report, the New Orleans Advocate and other outlets. |
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