How the Republicans Won In Louisiana Last Night (Cao and Fleming Races)

The short answer is Hurricane Gustav and closed primaries.

A little background here before getting into the races. This was the first year we had closed primaries in Federal races. Before this election we had basically everyone runs if no one gets over 50 percent the top two vote getters go into a runoff regardless of party affiliation. This was crucial in the Cao race which we shall see.

Hurricane Gustav forced all elections to be delayed. The General election should have been on the national election day. Instead we were just getting to the party runoffs. Also this had another effect. It made people have to spend more money they did not really have. Again this was really crucial in the Cao race where William Jefferson had a strong Dem Primary challenge and was short on funds to begin with.

A Look at the races.

The Fleming Race-

First let us look at what long term is the most crucial race and potential long term defeat for the Democrat party. That is the 4th Congressional District between GOP Fleming and Dem Carmouche.

This is a very conservative district and has had a Republican for 20 years. The Republican that held this office retired. Why this loss is devastating in some ways is because this district likes to keep the same person in office. It is hard to get rid of them. Note though there is a ray of light for Democrats because it is likely that Louisiana will lose a Congressman. Though the population loss has been down South and it is very unfair there might be an effort of to make all of North Louisiana one seat. I pray that is not the case and that most of changing of the lines happens down South. Still who knows what will happen.

But for now if the District in anyway stays similar this seat could stay in GOP hands for a long time. The Democrats put up a very popular very conservative District Attorney from Shreveport Louisiana up. Shreveport is the main population area as well as neighboring Bossier Parish. This District is a North Louisiana District but is also a very West Louisiana District that makes it a little bit different.

The Final Numbers

44,141
47.69%
Paul J. Carmouche, D
-
44,497
48.07%
John Fleming, R
-
675
.73%
Gerard J. Bowen, Jr., O
-
3,245
3.51%
Chester T. "Catfish" Kelley, N

Very very close. How this race was won and lost can be sort of gleamed by looking at the Parish by Parish Numbers.

The Bastion of Republican Support in District Bossier Parish saved Fleming. What is also interesting is that Fleming lost his home Parish of WEBSTER and still won.

This race became a race of competing RCN and DNC TV commercials that were very very negative. In the end with the dynamics of the district this perhaps hurt Carmouche who was painted as some liberal when he is nothing of the sort. It should be noted the DNC ads on Fleming were pretty bad

The think that is striking the further South you go the worse Carmouche does. So the farther you went from where Carmouche is known his numbers became much worse than I figured. For instance down in the most southern parts Carmouche just got killed in Beauregard , and Vernon Parishes. I think the RNC ads plus Fleming working hard down there worked. If Carmouche had been on the ballot when Obama was running and Black turnout was maximized we very well could be seeing Congressman Elect Carmouche today.

One factor that I did not consider with Carmouche is that perhaps his political skills were a tad rusty. I saw signs of this in the race. Paul got elected in 1978 as DA and was well liked by both GOPERs and Dems. He has never has a serious race since then. Thus that also might have been at play.

The Cao Race-
This is the race that everyone is talking about today. This District is the entire Parish of Orleans plus some of Jefferson Parish.

The Final numbers are here:


31,296
46.82%
William J. Jefferson, D
-
1,880
2.81%
Malik Rahim, G
-
548
.82%
Gregory W. Kahn, L
-
33,122
49.55%
Anh "Joseph" Cao, R

Here is the breakdown by Parish. First Cao did what has been the attempted game plan to defeat Jefferson for the last two cycles. He got enough of the Jefferson Parish vote to be factor. No doubt if this race was held on Nov 4th we would be looking at Congressman Jefferson or perhaps a Moreno. That is the factor that was overlooked last time. Moreno was a very attractive Democrat that was running against Jefferson. In fact she crossed party lines in the final days to support CAO.

Lets look at Jefferson numbers from the DEM runoff that showed he was in trouble:


92,921
56.79%
William J. Jefferson, D

Elected
70,705
43.21%
Helena Moreno, D

Now if their had been a open primary it might have been a interesting question to see how many GOPERS and Independents would have gone to Moreno to get rid of Jefferson. This district is only 11.2 percent GOP which is about 41,069 votes. But add to that the 83,602 other party or Independent (racial background on that group of OTHER PARTY voters is white- 38.2% , black-45.5%, other- 16.2%)

But Moreno I suspected had something else going against her. That has been Jefferson strength. That is the Dems were anxious about putting someone in to replace Jefferson because that might mean they could not get rid of the new and get their person in. I think this really played with the Jefferson Parish and Uptown numbers a lot.

It is tough to pin this down now but I think the Dems founds a out. A person they could vote for and have a more easy job of defeating two years from now.

What killed Jefferson, besides having no money, was horrible black turnout. while CAO managed to keep this herd of cats in Uptown New Orleans together. That was the key for CAO. A lot of credit goes to neighboring GOP Congressman Steve Scalise that knows the city well. It was observed elsewhere he did a very good job of using his influence in uptown for Cao. It is exciting the "immigrant" vote was a fact or here. Of course the Vietnamese Community was huge for obvious reasons. However I think the Hispanics played a part too.

Uptown number stayed up for Cao. Meaning there was a transfer between normally White supporting Dems from Moreno to Cao Lets look at two precincts that are close to each other near Jefferson Avenue and St. Charles. In 13-9 which voted heaving for Moreno last time the number of total votes between a month ago and today was 255 to 232, a fall of only 23 votes. For nearby 13-11 which voted heavily for Jefferson last time the number of total votes between a month ago and today was 292-110, a fall of 182 votes. Multiply this a few dozen times and you see a trend.

In the area where Jefferson was the strongest what do we see?
Well lets look at the turnout in heavily black precincts in the 9th Ward Look at 9-23. Jefferson beat Cao 60-3 but a month ago Jefferson got 217 votes out of this precinct. This was being played out in precinct after precinct in black areas of Orleans

It was not like CAO got actually black votes out of these black wards that were significant it appears to me. However what was the key was that many African Americans decided to stay home. The fact that various machines appeared decided not to get the vote out for Jefferson is telling.

CAO in the end ran a very good campaign. If he can build a coalition to stay in office after the next two years is a different story.Hopefully from a GOP standpoint he can. However Congrats to Cao and his supporters for getting the win.