A Look at The Primary Election in Louisiana's 4th Congressional District ( Race to replace Republican Jim McCrery)

This is the district where I live so I have some insight on this one.

I am afraid because of whom I think will be the eventual nominee for the Dems that this will be a dem pick up. That is eventually Democrat Paul Carmouche ( Current District Attorney of Caddo Parish) will be the eventual winner. However this will be a long race so still anything can happen. Last night does show some Carmouche weakness. So lets looks at the Republican and Democrat Primary

First a little house keeping. This election had to be moved because of the chaos of the hurricane. This really could hurt some folks because they did not budget for weeks of extra campaigning.

This is often thought of as a Northern Louisiana conservative district . That is slightly incorrect. It is more a Western Louisiana Conservative district as you can see as to the map.

This district is 63.0% White, 33.5% Black.

The major cites are It includes the cities of Shreveport, Bossier City , DeRidder, and Natchitoches.

THIS IS THE FIRST PRIMARY in forever we have voted in closed primaries!!! We used to have open primaries for Federal races but now they are closed by party.

In disclosure I voted for Republican "Jeff" Thompson.

The Republican race was interesting and is heading to a runoff.

Final results
14,500
35.14%
John Fleming, R
-
14,070
34.10%
"Chris" Gorman, R
-
12,693
30.76%
"Jeff" Thompson, R

Jeff Thompson is from the Bossier area ( The bastion of Republican Power in this district.). He was endorsed by the outgoing Republican Congressman. The huge problem Thompson had was money. He actually did well on fundraising and got more individual contributions than the other two. The problem is Thompson is not rich. Dr Fleming spent ONE MILLION Of his own money on this race. Gorman Spent about HALF a MILLION of his own money.

It was a constant air war between Gorman and Fleming (that got sort of nasty toward the end) that Thompson could not compete in. So Thompson recognizing that concentrated on a ground war and hoped to make it up in Bossier and Caddo Parishes. He almost succeeded.

The lack of funding of funds to compete with the money that Gormon and Fleming were putting in showed in the rural and especially southern Parishes. You can see that here in the Parish by Parish results. If Thompson had lets say an extra Hundred Thousands to spend in the rural areas I think he would made the run off.

It is hard to say what will happen next. Where will the Thompson vote go? I think the majority will go to Fleming but anything can happen.

Republicans caught a break though. Paul Carmouche (the democrat favorite) is in a run off. Full disclosure again I used to work for him.

Here are the results from last night


17,620
22.96%
Willie Banks, D
-
36,930
48.12%
Paul J. Carmouche, D
-
6,065
7.90%
Artis "Doc" Cash, D
-
16,135
21.02%
John Milkovich, D
-


A little background on the people running. Carmouche is a very popular conservative Democrat DA from the Shreveport/ Bossier area. Artis Cash is a African American from the Shreveport area. I do not know a lot about Banks but he is from the Southern part of the district. Milkovich is a "conservative" democrat from Shreveport

Milkovich's showing surprised me last night. I like John Milkovich a lot but he is sort of a goof. He is a big time Plaintiff lawyer and very tuned into a segment of the religious conservatives. He goes to Church at Evangel and Louisiana readers know the power of that. That means John has access to that Assembly of God vote and the related Pentecostal vote. If I had to bet I bet Carmouche got the Baptist vote and John got quite a bit of that other Pentecostal associated vote which is a blue dog democrat vote.

I did not expect him to do so well and I have to admit I am glad he did so well. Here is the parish by parish results.

In the most Southern Parish of Beauregard we see these results

Willie Banks 1,171
Paul J. Carmouche 895
Artis "Doc" Cash 232
John Milkovich 2,060

Now this parish I am largely ignorant of as to the political dynamics. All I now is that is there is a Military presence there because of nearby Fort Polk. What makes people tick down there I am pretty clueless on.

Why Milovich did so well down there is a curious thing. Is it because Carmouche was seen as the Rep of the Shreveport /Bossier power brokers and people that did not go to Banks went to Milkovich?

Anyway most of these Blue Dog Democrat vote that John got will go to Carmouche. The runoff for the democrat race will the same day as the Presidential election.

Can Col. Banks make a outreach to white voters in the South and that coupled with huge black turnout gets him in the general election? Maybe so.

I was in the Republican weeds so I know little of Banks. If I was him that is how I would do it. Make it a issue on the local level below the radar of not having the Shreveport Blue bloods control the district again to get white vote in the south. Still I think it is a uphill struggle. Paul still did quite well down South and for Banks to have success at such a effort as I describe above he must get better support in Natchitoches parish for that to work.

I think it is Carmouche's race to lose. Black turnout will be much bigger in the Nov runoff which should help Banks. Still registration in this district is still high democrats and I think Carmouche gets it.

The key for eventual Republican success is that Banks somehow makes Carmouche spends lots of money!!!

I will examine the New Orleans Congressional race next (The infamous William Jefferson District)