Louisiana is justly renowned for its fabulous cuisine, which mixes elements of Creole, Cajun, West African , French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, and Choctaw cooking into an incomparable blend of flavor with nature’s food bounty.
One of the signature dishes in our kitchens, high and low, is gumbo. Gumbo is a stew that originated in southern Louisiana during the 1700’s.* It has a few classic ingredients, but it can include almost anything in the pantry.
Louisiana politics has a similar gumbo feature. Unlike nearly all other U.S. states, our elections feature an open primary system, where all qualifying candidates from both parties compete against each other in a single election contest.** I prefer to call this one-pot system a Gumbo Primary. The two highest vote getters, regardless of their party affiliation, go to a second round final election, if no candidate gets 50% or more of the total first round primary vote total.
This is real muscular democracy in action, no holds barred, and no sneaking in the back door. Wimps need not apply. The winner of a Gumbo Primary is truly the people’s choice for that election. This system has been used here in statewide elections since 1975, and for federal elections since 1978
Note in passing that David Duke (yes, that David Duke) ran as a Republican in the 1991 Louisiana governor’s race against 11 candidates in the open primary. There were 4 Republicans, 7 Democrats, and I unaffiliated candidate competing, The 4 Republicans received 988,833 votes versus 551,209 for the 7 Democrats in the first round. Despite the Republican overall advantage in total first round votes, Democrat Edwin Edwards topped the field the first round with 33..8% of the votes. Duke finished a close second to Edwards with 31.4%.
Turnout for the final round increased by 11.5%. Edwards ultimately received 1,057.031 votes and Duke 671,009 in the final tally. Edwards won convincingly and was elected governor. Duke departed for other climes.
Louisiana held both Republican and Democratic presidential primary elections yesterday, March 5. Louisiana tied for the biggest Republican delegate prize of the four states in play (along with Kentucky), and was the largest prize among three contests for Democrats.
The primaries were closed to voting by party designation, due to national political party rules.
In point of fact, both primaries occurred on exactly the same day, during exactly the same hours, in exactly the same polling places, with exactly the same poll workers, and using exactly the same voting booths. Indeed, when a voter entered the both, both Republican and Democratic ballots were displayed side by side on the same voting screen. Only one part of the voting screen was live. You declared your party registration on signing in to vote, and were given a party ID number (Republican was lucky number 7 yesterday), so that the booth attendant could ensure that only the correct ballot was active.
Here is the Republican Primary Ballot from yesterday:
Here are the final results in Louisiana, as reported in the New York Times:
You will note that separate results are reported for Republicans and Democrats.The primaries were closed to voting by party designation, due to national political party rules.
What do these results look like when the usual Louisiana Gumbo Primary rules are applied?
These are the hard results of the people’s choice, when votes are cast under identical conditions. No hype, no spin, and no excuses.
There should be little comfort here for Trump, based on the votes actually cast. He lost head to head to Hillary Clinton by 97,000 votes in Louisiana, a deep-red southern state in presidential races. So much for Number One.
Louisiana has voted Republican for president all four times since 2000. Both senators and 5 of 6 congress members are Republican. Representative Steve Scalise (First District) is the U.S. House of Representatives Majority Whip.
Trump received just 20.4% of all the votes vast by Louisiana’s citizens this year. Yet Republican turnout was very high for this primary: 301,169 vs. 186,410 for all Republican candidates in 2012. So, in 2016, there were 114.759 more Republican voting than in 2012, an increase of 61.6%.
Furthermore, Louisiana Democrats cast a total of 311, 613 votes compared to 301,169 by Republican voters. Louisiana has been called a Purple State, but for presidential politics since 2000 it has been only ruby-red.
In 2012, “Loser” Mitt Romney received 1,152,262 votes (57.8%) against an incumbent Democratic president. The total vote for president in Louisiana was 1,994,065 in 2012. For the record, the Louisiana vote in 2012 was the highest among all four recent elections. Thus, these 2016 primary results of 612,782 for both parties might reasonably increase by a factor of about 3.2 times for November.
Louisiana Presidential Election 2012
Trump has more than an exaggerated rhetoric problem. The dreaded Hillary Clinton beat him straight-up by nearly 100,000 actual votes (not poll numbers) in a ruby-red Republican presidential state. Republican turnout was up more than 60% in this primary election because of all the passion and publicity engendered by the campaign so far, for which he takes credit. Yet the Democrats received 311, 613 total votes, while all the Republicans got 301,169 in this dual primary.
Even if the Republican vote increases fully 3.2 times for the general election, their total is would be 963.741, which is almost 200,00 votes less than the “Loser” Romney got In 2012. With such an increase for November, Democrats would also be on pace to receive 997,162 votes, and thereby perhaps just eke out a very narrow victory, upsetting 20 years of Republican dominance in Louisiana presidential elections.
Trump may bluster in a press conference about how well he did in Louisiana. The actual votes seem to tell a different story. Republicans should feel some disquiet at their victory prospects with Trump on the ticket, and need to consider their remaining alternatives carefully.
By the numbers in Louisiana, either the Trump effect is holding down previously reliable Republican voters, or it is galvanizing Democrats to show up. He may be inspiring angry Republicans to vote, and whipping even more Democrats to head to the polls, as all voters get to hear him expand on his Twitter campaign, and respond to pointed criticism from his fellow candidates. The apparent Louisiana first place finish with 41.4% is misleading. Something just doesn’t add up, particularly at this advancing point in the primary season.
As Desi Arnaz might put it, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
* This chicken and sausage recipe is from Chef Emeril Lagasse, derived from the classic ya-ya gumbo recipe of Chef Paul Prudhomme.
** This system has been called a nonpartisan blanket primary. It is also known as a jungle primary, qualifying primary, top-two primary or Louisiana primary.
Listening to Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong play jazz, while enjoying some classic chicken and Andouille sausage gumbo served over rice, and watching 2016 election returns is a festival for all the senses. Fine music and food can partially blunt the sting of having to Trump up your brain.