Louisiana's Democrats lose big, Republicans win trifecta

15 October 2023

2023 has been a rough year for the Louisiana Democrats. This is the year the Louisiana GOP gained a supermajority in the state legislature, and this is the year gubernatorial power returned to the GOP. October 14th’s election saw the GOP candidate Jeff Landry defeat Democrat Shawn Wilson in the first round primary election with 51% of the vote, just above the simple majority needed to avert a runoff election in November.

There’s a necessary caveat, however. Voter turnout was a mere 35%. Louisiana’s voter turnouts are reliably low, but 35% is dismal. For context, 2019’s election, which saw Democrat John Bel Edwards narrowly re-elected against a Trump-endorsed Republican candidate, had a turnout of 45.9% in the primary, and 51% in the runoff.

This dismal turnout comes after years of Democrat messaging about the importance of voting, and the diversion of left-wing energies in Louisiana’s cities towards voter registration drives by activists associated with the Louisiana Democrats. All of this, plus a series of voting rights wins, including the re-enfranchisement of formerly incarcerated people, has amounted to nil for the party. The state Democrats are now in a position of political irrelevance.

How could this happen? For starters, the Louisiana Democrats are a right-wing party, leaving Louisiana’s voters with the choice between right-wing Democrats and the far right-wing GOP. Under John Bel Edwards, abortion has been banned, with the legislation that banned abortion being authored by a Democrat from Monroe with JBE’s endorsement. While Louisiana came tantalizingly close to decriminalizing cannabis with Republican legislator Richard Nelson’s bill HB699 in 2021, JBE has repeatedly voiced opposition to cannabis legalization. While indigenous activists protested the construction of pipelines nationwide, the Louisiana government under JBE cracked down on indigenous-led resistance to the construction of a gas pipeline through the ecologically sensitive Atchafalaya basin (a pipeline which has since leaked). Edwards may have been a bulwark against the worst inclinations of the reactionary-controlled legislature, but in this role he was merely conservative, and certainly not progressive.

The Louisiana Democrats have tailed the right-wing of the GOP for as long as I can remember. Our last Democrat senator, Mary Landrieu, was a “blue dog” conservative Democrat, which Louisiana voters rewarded her for by replacing her with the Republican Bill Cassidy in 2014. While the state party’s leadership has insisted that their right-tailing strategy is necessary to remain electorally competitive, it should be obvious by now that all that the Louisiana Democrats have accomplished through it is the alienation of left-wing voters and an emboldenment of the reactionary party they’ve been tailing.

The Louisiana Republicans now have nothing in their way. There will be no prolonged political battles against school privatization, against fiscal austerity, against the expansion of mass incarceration, against censorship of written materials and the internet, against the curtailment of rights for sexual minorities, and so on. With uncontested control over the Louisiana government, the GOP is now in a position to get everything it wants without compromise being sought from outside the party.

This year’s election was not a fluke. Outside of Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Democrats are now effectively a rump party. But even within the cities, the Democrats are not the political machine they once were. Democrats lost control of Shreveport’s mayor’s office in 2021, in an election that likewise saw a dismal turnout. The Democrats, with their own right-ward lurch, have not been a believable source of social change for a very long time, and leadership signals no intention of reversing course.

One of the most frustrating things about this election has been the degree to which the Louisiana Democrats sleepwalked into disaster. The Republicans outspent Democrats by a shocking degree. While the RNC poured money into this state election, the DNC offered zilch. The most shocking figure comes from Sam Karlin of NOLA.com, which is that while the state GOP spent $1,200,000 in the month of September, the Louisiana Democrats spent a mere $28,000. To the chagrin of Louisiana’s liberals and progressives, the Democratic party showed more concern towards eliminating its left flank - spending inordinate time and resources to fail to replace New Orleans rep. Maddie Landry with a more right-wing Democrat (Landry won by 66% - right-wing Democrats again underestimated their unpopularity versus the left). The leadership of the Democratic party in Louisiana has all but abandoned its core constituencies, and its core constituencies have responded by withholding their ballots except for candidates which buck the leadership or have formed organic relationships with their constituents.

If there’s any silver lining for socialists, it’s that the conservatives in this state have no one left to blame but themselves for the issues that have chronically plagued it. Pothole-ridden highways, economic growth below the national average, crime rates higher than the national average (despite perpetual “tough on crime” posturing), rampant pollution which endangers public health, and a continued population exodus (for which people like Jeff Landry are cheerleaders) now lack a Democrat for a scapegoat. Conservatives can not posture as “rebels” when they hold the reins of state power, and disaffected workers will soon be looking for ideological alternatives to the conservative bromides their bosses dish out and which ring hollow on radio talk shows everyday on their morning commute. The prestige of conservative ideology has perhaps reached its high watermark, and the socialists in Louisiana have an opportunity to be at the vanguard of the political opposition.

To take advantage of this situation, socialists need to stress our independence from the Democratic party, the oldest bourgeois party in the state, and continue to assert our opposition to the party’s right-wing leadership, with the aim of leading progressives out of the party and into the socialist movement. Efforts must be made to counter reactionary propaganda and advance socialist political education, especially in the wake of GOP-led initiatives to privatize and de-secularize public schools. An emphasis needs to be placed on building up organic networks which publicize socialist discourse and get socialist ideas into people’s heads. As the ubiquity of conservative messaging and talking points in local media goes to show, the far right has had remarkable success building an “alternative” media system, and they’ve been aided in that regard by extensive millionaire and billionaire patronage. Obviously this latter aspect can’t be replicated, but the right-wing media system in this state provides a decent example to learn from (although certainly not to build a cargo cult out of).

The socialist movement in Louisiana is still in its embryonic stage, but we are confronted with unique political circumstances which make socialist revolution (through the ballot box or otherwise) more feasible than ever. We shouldn’t mourn the failure of the right-wing leadership of the Louisiana Democrats. The failure of the Democrats in this election is a confirmation of socialist political instinct, and points to the relevance that a socialist movement could have if we keep up our efforts.