LA 2019 Gov Race: Gov John Bel Edwards wins a 2nd term

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1183253093712125954

For reference, the first was vitter's best in 2015.

[smoltchanov]

Lol John Milkovich lost and he’s probably the most conservative legislator in the country. So much for “Dems need to stop stressing social issues and they can win”

ANY Demicrat would lose there. Simply because "D" letter is almost as toxic there as "R" - in San Francisco.

[smoltchanov]

Lol John Milkovich lost and he’s probably the most conservative legislator in the country. So much for “Dems need to stop stressing social issues and they can win”

LMAO

JFC, didn't this guy AUTHOR the draconian abortion ban?!

Yes. And still - he was, probably, "insufficiently conservative" for his voters. You don't expect winning Republican to vote differently, don't you?

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

RIsPone Edwards.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1183219098911682561

Edwards was never at 66% you damned miscreant.

[Pericles]

Trump just keeps pulling numbers out of his ass lol.

[Pericles]

How primary votes are redistributed for a JBE vs Rispone runoff, according to a final poll. Calculating this, I get 47.9% JBE, 45.1% Rispone and 7% undecided.

[Coldstream]

Jeff Landry must be feeling pretty stupid right now.

[Frenchrepublican]

How primary votes are redistributed for a JBE vs Rispone runoff, according to a final poll. Calculating this, I get 47.9% JBE, 45.1% Rispone and 7% undecided.

Yeah, that’s probably where the race stands as of now

The big question is who are the undecided voters and my guts tell me that they’re not very favourable to Edwards.

[jamestroll]

I still would bet on Jon Bel Edwards in the run off.

Yes, we all know Southern Whites are very inflexible. Probably will give Trump like a 0.5% Georgia victory next year.

I do not know much of Louisiana political geography but I am figuring Edwards will win the run off with 52.2% of the vote and will end up with 57% in the Jefferson Parish and probably also wins St Charles,  Plaquemines and St Benard parishes quite handily.

Just shows you how much the coalitions have changed in such a short time! Four years ago Edwards needed a large  statewide victory to barely carry those parishes. This year he is basically counting on them to win re-election. I do not think they are the types of suburbs that will trend Democratic really. They are just to conservative. But since they have some logic and some intelligence they are able to be reasoned with and worth reaching out to and build a winning coalition. Like Hamilton County, Indiana is similar in some senses. Heavy conservative but any Democrat who wins that state going forward has to win Hamilton.

New swing voters are white suburbanites.

[Alben Barkley]

Unfortunately, pretty sure my signature is gonna be proven right.

See the thing about run-offs is that if you don't get a majority the first time, you're in a much tougher position because most of the people who voted for the other guy in the same party are probably gonna stick with that party's nominee in the run-off. Most of the polls suggested this would happen, so I was already predicting a narrow Edwards defeat in the run-off, maybe 51-49 or 52-48 or something along those lines, and this has definitely not changed that. I really don't know why people think enough Abraham voters are gonna flip to Edwards to give him a majority in the run-off. I suppose it COULD happen, and I hope it does, but given the laser focus the GOP will have on targeting Edwards now for the next month, I have my doubts.

On the other hand, in Kentucky Beshear doesn't need to win a majority -- he just has to get a plurality over Bevin. The way the Libertarian candidate is polling right now at about 5 or 6% could well be enough to give Beshear the edge given Bevin's immense unpopularity. So far his ties to Trump have not appeared to give him much of a boost -- he barely scraped by in the GOP primary against no-name contenders who barely ran campaigns despite Trump's endorsement.

By the way 2015 was a unique situation for the Louisiana governor's race that doesn't really apply here. But on the other hand you could actually argue Bevin's win in Kentucky in 2015 was also unique due to a very weak Democratic candidate, a very poor turnout year for most Democrats (yet Andy Beshear still won the AG race), and a rare GOP victory for the KY governor's mansion after eight years of Beshear Sr. The situation isn't the same in Louisiana, and despite the incumbency of both Edwards (who is relatively popular for a Democrat in a deep red state) and Bevin (who is horrifically unpopular for a Republican in a deep red state), I ultimately think both will lose.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Doesn't seem like there's enough votes left for JBE to crack 50% or for Abraham to overtake Rispone. Matchup looks set.

Yeah, I’m not optimistic about this runoff unlike the people rating it Likely D or whatever. A month of Trump rallies in Louisiana? Yikes

I said this a year ago back when JBE had yuge leads and the CW was he was an Unbeatable Titan who would win in a landslide in round 1:

Now that Kennedy has declined to run I'd rate it a toss up. I think JBE is in decent shape to win considering he's pretty popular and the fact that he won't have the strongest challenger, but it's still Louisiana. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Abraham or whoever makes it a tight race once their name recognition goes up and they get a Trump endorsement. But for now if forced to bet I'd bet on JBE.

I was heavily mocked for rating this a toss up for the longest time, lol. I will now accept my accolades.

CW was always that there would be a runoff and you were not heavily mocked for that prediction, but thanks for playing

[DaWN]

Because despite popular belief, the Republican base is far more partisan and inflexible than the Democratic base.

I get the feeling this more because of incompetence from the Democrats than actual inherent qualities in the base. If they had really wanted to take down Hogan last year for instance, they probably could have done if they had gone hard on him, tied him to Trump and McConnell etc. But they let him slide by. It's something the GOP never let happen (even in WV and MT they tried, even if those attempts were unsuccessful for whatever reason). I think if the Democrats took the GOP model of utter demonisation of all Republicans and a continual strategy of making sure the base is always pissed off they would wipe out the Blue State Republican as effectively as the Red State Democrat has nearly been wiped out (probably at very little cost in swing states as well). Of course, that would require a spine they clearly don't have, but it's an interesting hypothetical...

[walleye26]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jefferson county are wealthy and educated suburbs. Did these trend D compared to 2015’s results?

[ElectionsGuy]

Intervals: <60%, 60-70%, and 70%+ (non-Atlas colors)

Total Republican: 696,399 (51.8%)
Total Democratic: 636,993 (47.4%)

[Lisa's voting Biden]

Edwards - 47%
Rispone - 27%
Abraham - 23%
Others - 3%

Final result vs my prediction:
Edwards - 46.6% (-0.4)
Rispone - 27.4% (+0.4)
Abraham - 23.6% (+0.6)
Others - 2.4% (-0.6)

Lol

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

Lol John Milkovich lost and he’s probably the most conservative legislator in the country. So much for “Dems need to stop stressing social issues and they can win”

LMAO

JFC, didn't this guy AUTHOR the draconian abortion ban?!

Yes. And still - he was, probably, "insufficiently conservative" for his voters. You don't expect winning Republican to vote differently, don't you?

Aren’t you the one always bellyaching about how Democrats don’t run enough moderate candidates or conservative candidates to fit their districts? This is what happens when they do! They lose anyway

Meanwhile Democrats will fall over themselves on their way to vote for “moderate” Republicans

[jaichind]

Edwards - 47%
Rispone - 27%
Abraham - 23%
Others - 3%

Final result vs my prediction:
Edwards - 46.6% (-0.4)
Rispone - 27.4% (+0.4)
Abraham - 23.6% (+0.6)
Others - 2.4% (-0.6)

Lol

Wow, impressive.  Congrats

[BP🌹]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jefferson county are wealthy and educated suburbs. Did these trend D compared to 2015’s results?

I don't know that they're particularly wealthy or well-educated compared to the nation as a whole, but
compared to Louisiana? Probably. But yes. Significantly so. He only won there in the runoff by a single point, against David Vitter. The results in Metairie in particular are astounding.

[IceSpear]

Doesn't seem like there's enough votes left for JBE to crack 50% or for Abraham to overtake Rispone. Matchup looks set.

Yeah, I’m not optimistic about this runoff unlike the people rating it Likely D or whatever. A month of Trump rallies in Louisiana? Yikes

I said this a year ago back when JBE had yuge leads and the CW was he was an Unbeatable Titan who would win in a landslide in round 1:

Now that Kennedy has declined to run I'd rate it a toss up. I think JBE is in decent shape to win considering he's pretty popular and the fact that he won't have the strongest challenger, but it's still Louisiana. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Abraham or whoever makes it a tight race once their name recognition goes up and they get a Trump endorsement. But for now if forced to bet I'd bet on JBE.

I was heavily mocked for rating this a toss up for the longest time, lol. I will now accept my accolades.

CW was always that there would be a runoff and you were not heavily mocked for that prediction, but thanks for playing

Nice revisionist history. Yes, most people in the last few weeks thought there would be a runoff, maybe even in the last couple months, but the CW in 2018/early-mid 2019 was that JBE was inevitable and would be the Democratic version of Larry Hogan, Charlie Baker, etc.

[lfromnj]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jefferson county are wealthy and educated suburbs. Did these trend D compared to 2015’s results?

This county did not only Trend D from 2015 which everyone expected but it actually trended further D from 2016 which is not what people expected considering it takes time for trends to fully hit the local level . I expected about a 10 point D trend from 2015 and a 4 or 5 point R trend from 2016 putting it right where the state was. Instead we got a 5 point d trend from 2016 and a 20 point D trend from 2015.

[Cinemark]

Intervals: <60%, 60-70%, and 70%+ (non-Atlas colors)

Total Republican: 696,399 (51.8%)
Total Democratic: 636,993 (47.4%)

If these are the results in November, it'd be disapointing but certainly a noble effort from the last Southern Republican governor.

[jamestroll]

So the St Charles Parish was more pro-Edwards compared to statewide average last night. 47.2% versus 46.6%.

In 2015 it was a bare narrow victory for Edwards in a statewide landslide. Next month it could well be more Democratic than the state!

[junior chįmp]

Lol John Milkovich lost and he’s probably the most conservative legislator in the country. So much for “Dems need to stop stressing social issues and they can win”

Imagine thinking the average clueless voters who know damn near nothing about Federal elections and national issues, let alone local races, are somehow keenly aware of their local state legislators and their policy positions.

 The ClOWN journos and experts actually believe this tho

[Mr. Smith]

Intervals: <60%, 60-70%, and 70%+ (non-Atlas colors)

Total Republican: 696,399 (51.8%)
Total Democratic: 636,993 (47.4%)

If these are the results in November, it'd be disapointing but certainly a noble effort from the last Southern Republican governor.

Firstly, I think you mean Democratic.

Secondly, Roy Cooper and Ralph Northam still exist.