2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Louisiana

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Nonpartisan map with only one VRA district. Such a map is possible because Democrats have just enough seats in the state legislature to allow Edwards to veto a bad map.

Would Edwards himself run in this LA-06?  He seems like the perfect candidate for it.

*He'd have to wait until 2024, but there's no way a Deep South Trump seat is flipping for Generic D in the 2022 midterm. 

He’s dead

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Nonpartisan map with only one VRA district. Such a map is possible because Democrats have just enough seats in the state legislature to allow Edwards to veto a bad map.

Would Edwards himself run in this LA-06?  He seems like the perfect candidate for it.

*He'd have to wait until 2024, but there's no way a Deep South Trump seat is flipping for Generic D in the 2022 midterm. 

He’s dead

I think that the poster is refer to John Bel Edwards, the incumbent Governor, not Edwin Edwards, the now deceased comically corrupt ex-Governor.

Doesn’t John Bel Edwards live in LA-1 on this map?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I actually think Julia Letlow is the type of Republican who could win a Biden +10 district.  I wouldn't count her 100% out in a new LA-05 that looks like the plaintiff's map.    

Has any Biden  +10 plurality black district elected a republican in a normal presidental election cycle. There's next to no crossover voting here

MS-02 is 65% Black and re-elected incumbent Bennie Thompson by 20 points in 2022.

The configuration of LA-05 in the plaintiff's map is ~55% Black and Letlow is the incumbent.  She's also a woman with moderate appeal.    

I could see it being a race, under the right circumstances.  

This is weapons-grade wishcasting.  Letlow wanted to overturn the 2020 election.  She’s a generic Republican nutjob with no crossover appeal whatsoever.  Nothing moderate about her.  

I actually think Julia Letlow is the type of Republican who could win a Biden +10 district.  I wouldn't count her 100% out in a new LA-05 that looks like the plaintiff's map.    

Has any Biden  +10 plurality black district elected a republican in a normal presidental election cycle. There's next to no crossover voting here

MS-02 is 65% Black and re-elected incumbent Bennie Thompson by 20 points in 2022.

The configuration of LA-05 in the plaintiff's map is ~55% Black and Letlow is the incumbent.  She's also a woman with moderate appeal.    

I could see it being a race, under the right circumstances.  

That's not a completive race, outside of freak circumstances no republican even one with moderate appeal is able to win black voters in substantial number especially in the deep south.  They can win black majority districts if the differential turnout is high enough, but given her district will include a substansial number of college educated liberal voters that won't be that helpful to her here.

....you have obviously never been to Baton Rouge LOL

Letlow is going to win more Black voters than a "normal" Republican in these circumstances.  If differential turnout is high enough, she could win the race.    

Imagine actually believing this

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

No, a Republican will not win a Biden +10 black seat in the south unless turnout just collapses among blacks. A narrower Biden +5 or so seat, maybe.

Letlow would've won a Biden +10 Black seat in 2022. Race dynamics would have been different in a swing seat, but it doesn't seem like it would've been close either. It could flip in 2024, but she got 10+% more than Trump in most Black counties in her district. And that's with some minor GOP candidates drawing votes. In a 1 v. 1 some of these Delta counties would have had 25 point margin swings to her. This double digit swing was mirrored in MS and AL Black Belt counties.

In some small more Black Parishes:
Morehouse Parish, Trump 56%, Letlow 66%, total GOP 69%
East Carroll Parish, Trump 36%, Letlow 47%, total GOP 50%
Madison Parish, Trump 41%, Letlow 54%, total GOP 56%
Tensas Parish, Trump 47%, Letlow 60%, total GOP 64%

In larger parishes:
Ouchita Parish, Trump 61%, Letlow 71%, total GOP 75%
Rapides Parish, Trump 65%, Letlow 70%, total GOP 77%

Turnout collapsed in 2022. It's not that far fetched to see huge swings in the Black South when it happened just last year. An entrenched incumbent like Sewell would be fine, but an entrenched GOP incumbent vs. a newcomer Dem is not so safe. In Louisiana especially there would be a good chance of a runoff which might feature lower Black turnout.

Letlow is a generic Trumpy, pro-insurrection Republican backbencher with no crossover appeal.  The race would be Safe D even with a meh Democratic nominee.  Even if black turnout collapsed, she’d have no path to victory absent the Democrat having a bonafide Roy Moore-tier scandal.  No offense, but any suggestion otherwise is simply Republican wishcasting.  

There is no reason to think she’d have anything resembling crossover appeal, especially not with African-American voters.  If LA gets a second AA seat (and it likely will), then she’s gone and it won’t be very close either.  Probably not even a mildly competitive race tbh.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

No, a Republican will not win a Biden +10 black seat in the south unless turnout just collapses among blacks. A narrower Biden +5 or so seat, maybe.

Letlow would've won a Biden +10 Black seat in 2022. Race dynamics would have been different in a swing seat, but it doesn't seem like it would've been close either. It could flip in 2024, but she got 10+% more than Trump in most Black counties in her district. And that's with some minor GOP candidates drawing votes. In a 1 v. 1 some of these Delta counties would have had 25 point margin swings to her. This double digit swing was mirrored in MS and AL Black Belt counties.

In some small more Black Parishes:
Morehouse Parish, Trump 56%, Letlow 66%, total GOP 69%
East Carroll Parish, Trump 36%, Letlow 47%, total GOP 50%
Madison Parish, Trump 41%, Letlow 54%, total GOP 56%
Tensas Parish, Trump 47%, Letlow 60%, total GOP 64%

In larger parishes:
Ouchita Parish, Trump 61%, Letlow 71%, total GOP 75%
Rapides Parish, Trump 65%, Letlow 70%, total GOP 77%

Turnout collapsed in 2022. It's not that far fetched to see huge swings in the Black South when it happened just last year. An entrenched incumbent like Sewell would be fine, but an entrenched GOP incumbent vs. a newcomer Dem is not so safe. In Louisiana especially there would be a good chance of a runoff which might feature lower Black turnout.

Letlow is a generic Trumpy, pro-insurrection Republican backbencher with no crossover appeal.  The race would be Safe D even with a meh Democratic nominee.  Even if black turnout collapsed, she’d have no path to victory absent the Democrat having a bonafide Roy Moore-tier scandal.  No offense, but any suggestion otherwise is simply Republican wishcasting.  

There is no reason to think she’d have anything resembling crossover appeal, especially not with African-American voters.  If LA gets a second AA seat (and it likely will), then she’s gone and it won’t be very close either.  Probably not even a mildly competitive race tbh.

The runoff is more of a factor than Letlow’s strength. Differential turnout is enough to impact the result in that if it’s a more conservative drawing of the district. There’s a lot of room between Biden +7 and Biden +15 and both could be realistically be drawn. My argument is moot if it’s close to the top end.

The district is racially polarized, but that doesn’t make it allergic to swings. Biden’s margin is ten points lower than Obamas in some of these districts. The area has a longer term R trend and it swung strongly in 2022. It is possible for runoff differential turnout to make it competitive if it’s Biden +10 in a high turnout environment.

Even in a runoff, it’d take a Roy Moore-tier scandal for her to win.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Wouldn't it be easier to draw out Garret Graves than Julia Letlow? Is seniority a factor in why Republicans don't seem willing to do that?

Re: the earlier discourse on Letlow's crossover appeal - keep in mind that she won big in 2021 on a low-turnout special election with a lot of sympathy vote (young widow with two young kids running for the seat her husband got elected to but died before he could take office from Covid). Not sure if that sympathy vote still could play a role in any future crossover support, but that and her public pro-vaccine stance likely helps with some Democrats.

She has no crossover appeal

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

In light of the disastrous rural black turnout on Saturday I think Shreveport-Baton Rouge is definitely better than Monroe-Lafayette-Baton Rouge.

Mike Johnson's election as house speaker likely rules a map like this out; even in a map handed down by the court I don't see them being willing to take the heat for drawing out the speaker of the house.

Ehhh, Johnson is a freak accident and everyone knows it.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1724190784981778889?t=qshxOwJNEF6KpHu...

So the plan looks like no drawing to comply with the 5ths PI order, and instead try to argue a dead point in the merits trial before judges who have already ruled against them. Yeah, there's gonna be a master map.

Could be really bad for Mike Johnson

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The absurdity of protecting Letlow because she is the only woman in the delegation. Not that it much matters to me which Republican gets the cut but that really is an example of identity politics that serves no purpose.

It’s just an excuse to cut Graves, who is a political enemy of Landry’s