NEW ORLEANS — Jeff Landry will be Louisiana's next Governor, winning the October 14th election with 51 percent of the vote and evading a runoff. A result many didn't expect.
"A bit surprising that Jeff Landry won the Governor's race in the primary most of the polls showed him at 40-45 percent, so most people figured it’d be a runoff," UNO Political Science Professor, Ed Chervenak said.
Saturday, the Republicans had resounding victories across the board, an outcome the State Republican Party is happy about.
"I think the sky is the limit because [Landry] now has a legislature to work with he can now implement all types of legislation in place with his allies in the legislature," Jay Batt, the Deputy Chairman of the LAGOP, said.
But on the other hand, former executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party, Renee Lapeyrolerie, says it's not the outcome they wanted, but says there's still hope for state democrats.
"Eight years ago, we weren’t supposed to have a democratic governor and John Bel Edwards connected with voters. It is possible, we have Georgia as an example. Stacey Abrams after a disappointment in 2018. Stacey Abrams and other grassroots organizations registered 800 thousand voters," she said.
Some believe the results may have been impacted by a low voter turnout. Statewide, only 35 percent of voters turned out to cast their ballot for governor. In Orleans parish, voter turnout was 27 percent and in Jefferson Parish it was 32 percent.
"I think people are discontented with what’s going on. People are concerned about health insurance, homeowners’ insurance, car insurance, flood insurance and nothing seems to be done about it and I think people are upset about that," Chervenak said.
Chervenak says both parties need to connect better with voters to get them to the polls.
"They’ve got to address those kitchen table issues; the pocketbook issues people are concerned about and if people are seeing they are relating to those problems and coming up with solutions to the problems that’ll connect them back to the political system," Chervenak said.
And, before the November election, Chervenak says Democrats need to do something.
"Democrats need to salvage something out of this election, whether they keep republicans from being the supermajority in both chambers of the legislature or they win the secretary of state’s office because that’s probably their best shot," Chervenak said. "They really have to look inside and figure out what they need to do to save themselves because they’re basically sliding into insignificance at this point."
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