What does the LA election tell us about the remaining 2023 races?

[wbrocks67]

MS - Likely R -> Safe R
KY - Lean D -> Lean D

VA SD 24 - Tossup -> Tilt R

Agree with all of this.  It likely means MS won't even be close and VA R's now have more upside south of Richmond.  No reason to change KY, though.

I'm quite confused as to why people are making such changes, considering this isn't about "oh minority turnout is low" .... there is a reason here, and a lot of context, that does not crossover to pretty much any race.

The bottom line in LA is that Democrats did not invest. There wasn't a turnout operation; given how awful NOLA turnout was. Wilson barely had money; Landry did. RGA spent, DGA didn't. This isn't very hard to understand. 2022 showed us that were Dems *did* invest, they did pretty well. That's why LA is nothing like VA, KY, even MS at this point, given all those states are getting somewhat of a level of investment for GOTV from Democrats, while LA didn't. That's pretty much what this boils down to.

Exactly why FL-GOV was a mess for Democrats last year. They just didn't even try.

[wbrocks67]

MS - Likely R -> Safe R
KY - Lean D -> Lean D

VA SD 24 - Tossup -> Tilt R

Agree with all of this.  It likely means MS won't even be close and VA R's now have more upside south of Richmond.  No reason to change KY, though.

I'm quite confused as to why people are making such changes, considering this isn't about "oh minority turnout is low" .... there is a reason here, and a lot of context, that does not crossover to pretty much any race.

The bottom line in LA is that Democrats did not invest. There wasn't a turnout operation; given how awful NOLA turnout was. Wilson barely had money; Landry did. RGA spent, DGA didn't. This isn't very hard to understand. 2022 showed us that were Dems *did* invest, they did pretty well. That's why LA is nothing like VA, KY, even MS at this point, given all those states are getting somewhat of a level of investment for GOTV from Democrats, while LA didn't. That's pretty much what this boils down to.

Exactly why FL-GOV was a mess for Democrats last year. They just didn't even try.

FL-GOV had an incumbent that was popular at that time, which generally leads to a gigantic outperformance. It's similar to Beshear probably outperforming Biden by 30 points. On the other hand, LA-GOV was completely open, with a popular outgoing Democratic incumbent, so such an outperformance was actually impressive.

I honestly don't think FL-GOV had much to do with DeSantis being an incumbent. Sure, probably a little but that's not my point. The overarching situation in FL, even with FL-SEN and all of their statewide races was because Dems didn't try. That's the quick of it. LA-GOV having a popular outgoing Dem incumbent really has nothing to do with anything given that he wasn't close to Wilson and didn't seem involved at all. Landry was well known as a statewide elected official and had millions behind him. It would be surprising if he didn't win given those fundamentals.

[wbrocks67]

MS - Likely R -> Safe R
KY - Lean D -> Lean D

VA SD 24 - Tossup -> Tilt R

Agree with all of this.  It likely means MS won't even be close and VA R's now have more upside south of Richmond.  No reason to change KY, though.

I'm quite confused as to why people are making such changes, considering this isn't about "oh minority turnout is low" .... there is a reason here, and a lot of context, that does not crossover to pretty much any race.

The bottom line in LA is that Democrats did not invest. There wasn't a turnout operation; given how awful NOLA turnout was. Wilson barely had money; Landry did. RGA spent, DGA didn't. This isn't very hard to understand. 2022 showed us that were Dems *did* invest, they did pretty well. That's why LA is nothing like VA, KY, even MS at this point, given all those states are getting somewhat of a level of investment for GOTV from Democrats, while LA didn't. That's pretty much what this boils down to.

Exactly why FL-GOV was a mess for Democrats last year. They just didn't even try.

Charlie Crist was literally the governor of the state for 4 years, was the gubernatorial nominee in 2014, ran for Senate in 2010 and served in Congress for Six years. He had massive name recognition and should have had a floor of at least 45% without even trying!

I'm not sure what name recognition does when you have no infrastructure?

[wbrocks67]

It’s a good sign for Reeves in Mississippi, but I can’t really extrapolate anything out of Kentucky, as that state has a very tiny black population.

In Virginia I’d say it’s a bad sign for Dems in racially polarized rural seats like SD-17 and HD-82 but less meaningful in suburban seats with sizable black minorities like SD-24 and HD-97.

I feel like people are simply ignoring what's happening here. Why are we extrapolating out of this when Democrats *are* putting money and effort into VA and MS?

Democrats did not put anything into making black voters turnout in LA. That is clearly not the case in VA and MS. So why are we comparing these two?

[wbrocks67]

It’s a good sign for Reeves in Mississippi, but I can’t really extrapolate anything out of Kentucky, as that state has a very tiny black population.

In Virginia I’d say it’s a bad sign for Dems in racially polarized rural seats like SD-17 and HD-82 but less meaningful in suburban seats with sizable black minorities like SD-24 and HD-97.

I feel like people are simply ignoring what's happening here. Why are we extrapolating out of this when Democrats *are* putting money and effort into VA and MS?

Democrats did not put anything into making black voters turnout in LA. That is clearly not the case in VA and MS. So why are we comparing these two?

Agreed.  It is pretty clear that certain folks are tying themselves in knots desperately trying to justify their pre-existing doomer and Republican wishcasting narratives and simply ignoring any facts or analysis that doesn’t fit neatly into the narratives they’re pushing.

Polling (showing Trump gaining massively with black voters) and every single 2022/2023 result in the South points to the black belt collapsing for Biden in 2024.

Most of the polling showed Republicans gaining with black voters in 2022 too, and it did not happen.

[wbrocks67]

It’s a good sign for Reeves in Mississippi, but I can’t really extrapolate anything out of Kentucky, as that state has a very tiny black population.

In Virginia I’d say it’s a bad sign for Dems in racially polarized rural seats like SD-17 and HD-82 but less meaningful in suburban seats with sizable black minorities like SD-24 and HD-97.

I feel like people are simply ignoring what's happening here. Why are we extrapolating out of this when Democrats *are* putting money and effort into VA and MS?

Democrats did not put anything into making black voters turnout in LA. That is clearly not the case in VA and MS. So why are we comparing these two?

Agreed.  It is pretty clear that certain folks are tying themselves in knots desperately trying to justify their pre-existing doomer and Republican wishcasting narratives and simply ignoring any facts or analysis that doesn’t fit neatly into the narratives they’re pushing.

Polling (showing Trump gaining massively with black voters) and every single 2022/2023 result in the South points to the black belt collapsing for Biden in 2024.

Most of the polling showed Republicans gaining with black voters in 2022 too, and it did not happen.

It's not 2022, It's 2023 and we just had an election where the black belt in LA collapsed. Election Results are much more indicitive than polling.

Yes, because Democrats did not try. How many times does this needs to be said?!

[wbrocks67]

Not much. All this really shows is that black Democrats don't show up when the party doesn't try to turn them out (shocker). You saw a similar dynamic in 2022, where black turnout was pretty bad across the South but was decent in Georgia despite being a midterm.

Even in Georgia, Walker outperformed Trump in the black belt despite being a very weak candidate and Warnock being a perfect fit with them, and Kemp/Raffensperger put up numbers way better, with the latter even flipping GA-02.

Not true. Warnock did better than Biden in GA-02.

Not to mention, Warnock did 90-8 among black voters in GA, compared to 88-11 for Biden in 2020, so this whole "Walker outperformed Trump" thing is not true.