My RedState post on Saturday’s closed primaries.

I’m linking to this today instead of tomorrow because it’s actually pretty important. Well, maybe not the actual post; but the concept behind it. Very quickly: all four states having primaries and/or caucuses on Saturday are closed ones (only Republicans can vote); and three of the four will not allow independents to vote in the primary/caucus, either. Of those four, Louisiana still looks good for Trump in the polling. Kansas superficially looks good for him, but actually promises a galloping disaster for Trump (26% in a four man pre-debate poll that includes Kasich is bad news, especially since Trump doesn’t get last minute voters). Kentucky hasn’t been polled since before the last debate-but-one; Maine hasn’t been polled this year. In other words: keep watching the skies, because these races may go get funky.

Tweet of the Day, Louisiana Elections Have Consequences edition.

As Dan McLaughlin noted, this is what happens when you elect Democrats. Enjoy, Louisiana!

Well, put me in overshoes and call me a duck.

Preliminary results suggest that it’s gonna be Democrat John Bel Edwards as Governor and Republican Billy Nungresser as Lt. Governor in Louisiana.  Who had that in the pool? – Because that possibility wasn’t mentioned, much.

Gonna be some special spinning on this one, folks. For myself, I wonder if David Vitter will take the hint, when it comes to his next re-election race? Guess we’ll see*…

Moe Lane

*Now watch him win after all, just to spite us.

Republican trackers taping Republicans in Louisiana shenanigans!

I think that Dan has the right of it, here:

 

Continue reading Republican trackers taping Republicans in Louisiana shenanigans!

Democrat reduced to supporting the not-David Vitter Republicans in the LA-GOV race.

I have a weakness for articles like this.

Let’s get to the point: A Democrat … cannot win a Louisiana statewide election. Twenty years ago, someone like [Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Bel] Edwards would have been unbeatable. Today, however, a vote for the Amite Democrat is, for all practical purposes, a vote for Vitter.

Continue reading Democrat reduced to supporting the not-David Vitter Republicans in the LA-GOV race.

Fake Steve Scalise racism story shopped to blogger by vengeful Scalise opponent.

Not much to add to this story, except for two things:

  1. The Hill should probably start telling its readers soon that Steve Scalise actually talked to a local residents’ association, and not a white supremacists’ group.  Because the Hill’s readers are of the type that will hear about it anyway, and they might start wondering why the Hill hasn’t.
  2. …Rumormonger Gilda Reed lost by fifty points, huh? But didn’t want to use this story because of all the supposed racists in Steve Scalise’s district.  It will shock precisely zero of you that Dr. Gilda Reed is an academic and Democratic agitator of long standing in Louisiana: she was last seen trying to save Mary Landrieu from herself – unsuccessfully.  She’s also demonstrating what I’d call a galloping case of the paranoid jitters if I was any sort of medical health care professional; but I’m not, so I’m just going to note that I’m pretty sure that the Louisiana Republican party probably doesn’t send operatives out to burn down people’s houses*.

Actually… let’s talk a bit more about the second point, for a moment.  Or perhaps a bit ‘around’ the second point.  Might be fruitful. Continue reading Fake Steve Scalise racism story shopped to blogger by vengeful Scalise opponent.

Why the Democrats stupidly wrote off Louisiana too quickly.

As you no doubt know, the Democrats got their clocks cleaned last night in two House seat runoff elections and one Senate one.  The question is, could they have done better? – Actually, no, the question is, could they have done much better?  …And the answer may indeed be ‘yes’ in both cases.  Please note: a lot of this is going to be a discussion on how much or how little the rubble might have bounced, so keep that in mind.

Let’s start with the Senate race. All numbers here from AOSHQDD: they’re not the certified results, but they’re going to be fine for this analysis.

 Election  Runoff  LA-SEN
    619,397     561,099  Democrat
    603,045  –  Cassidy
    202,554  –  Maness
    805,599     712,330  Total GOP
 1,424,996  1,273,429

The total drop-off for that election was 91% for the Democrats, 88% for the GOP, and 89% overall.  In other words: the Democrats managed to retain more of their Election Day voters than the Republicans did.  Mary Landrieu still got destroyed in the general because the people who voted for Rob Maness clearly decided to show up for Bill Cassidy, too.  This was not particularly contested by Sen. Landrieu, probably because she had limited resources and clearly decided that she needed to boost her own side’s turnout more than she needed to depress her opponent’s turnout. Considering that Sen. Landrieu’s base was mostly African-American – a demographic that’s hard to get to turn out, historically – she didn’t actually do a bad job. Continue reading Why the Democrats stupidly wrote off Louisiana too quickly.

The Louisiana Runoff Election thread.

Why am I putting it up? Two reasons: one, my readers probably want to have a good chuckle when Sen. Mary Landrieu loses. Two, if a future echo of the soon-to-be-former-Senator somehow manages to open a hole in time and space in order to travel back to this timeline and change history so that she won after all… well. The least I can do is have a thread ready for my readers’ gibbering astonishment.  I’ll be doing some of that meeping myself, in fact.

Live results here.

UPDATE: Three minutes to call it.

Keystone bill passes House: eyes now turn to Senate.

That’s one way to put it, at least:

The House on Friday passed legislation to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, setting the stage for a showdown in the Senate next week.

The legislation was approved 252-161, with 31 Democrats joining Republicans in backing a construction permit for the controversial project, which would bring oil sands from Canada to refineries in the United States.

…although I should note that the term ‘controversial’ is, well, controversial: basically, the most progressive Democrats out there hate the thing, largely because they don’t like Americans to have cheap energy*.  Everybody else thinks that the idea is just swell; unfortunately – for the Democrats – the aforementioned progressives made a better offer.  Short-term thinking for the win! Continue reading Keystone bill passes House: eyes now turn to Senate.