Because only three states have gubernatorial elections in 2019, even what looks like a boring race in Louisiana is getting major attention from national Republicans.
Louisiana is an anomaly, in that it is a strongly conservative southern state which nonetheless has an incumbent Democratic governor. That Democrat, John Bel Edwards, plays a cultural moderate-conservative quite well, opposing both abortion and gun control. On economics, Edwards is sort of left-center, having expanded Medicaid while pushing through the legislature a modest tax hike.
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None of the biggest names among state Republicans entered the race against Edwards, but the Republican Governors Association nonetheless has been sending out a steady stream of anti-Edwards material in hopes that either U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham or businessman Eddie Rispone can overtake him this fall. This week, the Republican Governors Association released its first full anti-Edwards television ad.
The ad argues that Louisiana workers are being “left behind” economically, compared to the rest of the country, and blames Edwards for raising taxes. What happened was that one cent of the five-cent state sales tax was due to expire, and Edwards pushed through an extension of 45 hundredths of that penny. Louisiana nonetheless ranks among the lowest-taxed states in the union, overall. Various outfits use slightly different analytical tools to measure total tax burden by state, but depending on which method is used, Louisiana ranks either the fifth-least-taxed, sixth-least, tenth-least, or (an anomaly) 26th-least.
Regardless, the state’s unemployment rate of 4.4%, while extremely low by historical standards, is tied for the nation’s eighth worst.
No matter what the statistics are, Louisianans long have considered themselves economically beleaguered, and the ad does a clever job laying the blame on Edwards. The interesting thing is that the Republican Governors Association is making such an effort trying to win back the state’s governor’s mansion, despite surveys even by Republican pollsters showing Edwards as the heavy favorite. Part of the attention surely stems from the fact that so few other states have races to draw away national money and effort, and part surely from Louisiana’s strongly conservative recent voting history.
The question is, will the electorate’s general philosophical leanings rule, or will general inertia and the incumbency of an easygoing moderate Democrat win the day?
Louisiana no longer features the strange and oft-entertaining politics for which it was famous for nearly 80 years, but this race remains one to watch.
