There’s a piece which appeared at The Hill yesterday noting the numbers we’ve talked about in a couple of articles here at the site – namely, that the Louisiana Democrat Party is in a state of utter collapse and can’t turn out its voters.

The Democrats have fallen all the way down to just 38.4 percent of Louisiana registered voters. Just a couple of years ago they we well above 40. But worse than that, in early voting which ended on Saturday, they got swamped by a 45-40 count by the GOP, which is just 33.8 percent of the overall electorate (with a jungle primary, there’s no real reason to register either way – and there is especially no reason to change your registration once you make it, and yet people are changing registrations anyway).

The Hill notes the panic…

Louisiana gubernatorial candidate Shawn Wilson (D) is facing a challenging path to election amid warning signs that Democrats are not doing enough to motivate their base, including Black voters.

More than a dozen candidates are running to replace term-limited Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), with six main contenders emerging from the pack. Louisiana uses an open primary system where all contenders are listed under one ballot; if no candidate receives more than half of the vote, the two top vote-getters head to a runoff.

Wilson, a former state Transportation secretary, is expected to qualify during the Saturday primary for a November runoff election with leading Republican candidate Jeff Landry.

But experts are pointing to weaker polling among Black voters and limited coordination between the campaign and state party as among some of the causes for concern for Democrats in the gubernatorial race.

“Democratic turnout has been weak,” said Louisiana-based pollster John Couvillon.

“Normally, early voting tends to favor Democrats, and Republicans as of Saturday night cumulatively have a plus-5 lead,” added Couvillon, who typically works with Republicans.

Though fewer ballots for early voting have been cast overall this election cycle compared to 2019, more Republicans than Democrats have voted so far, according to data from the Louisiana secretary of State’s office.

Black voters make up a critical base of Democrats’ voting bloc in the state. But early voting numbers show Black turnout has dropped 8 percent compared to the 2019 primary. White voter turnout also declined 12 percent.

The Hill piece should have been more specific, because it’s white Democrats who aren’t showing up. White Republicans seem to be voting pretty often this year.

But check this out…

Tyronne Walker, vice president for policy, strategic partnerships and development with the Louisiana Urban League, said there’s no denying Black voter turnout is not where they’d like it to be. But he added that the historical barriers cannot be overlooked in discussions around voter turnout.

“We have to recognize that we live in a country that has had centuries of systematic, well-designed barriers that are intended to disenfranchise African Americans and other marginalized communities, and those barriers still exist,” Walker said.

Seriously? Jim Crow is the reason the Democrats can’t turn out the black vote in 2023? Those excuses are getting old, no?

And this is pretty entertaining as well…

Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said this “significant historical moment” could have been a chance for investment from the larger Democratic Party, but instead neither the party nor other progressive donors took advantage of the opportunity.

“There’s really no discussion, and more importantly, very little lack of investment in voter mobilization,” Albright told The Hill. “That includes the party itself not putting a lot into this election, which, unfortunately, is a pattern that we’re seeing in Southern states in general and particularly in states that have Black candidates.”

Albright added that though the early voting numbers aren’t as high as Black Voters Matter might have hoped, Black voters have often had larger turnout in the general election than the primary.

A Wilson campaign official told The Hill that the campaign has been doing voter outreach to its base, noting he’s been on the airwaves in every media market, has been doing outreach in churches and has taken part in interviews on Black-owned radio shows. The person also noted that the campaign has employed surrogates including Edwards and Carter to do robocalls.

“Since March, Shawn Wilson has traveled more than 45,000 miles meeting with communities across Louisiana to talk about what is at stake this election, up and down the ballot,” Wilson campaign manager Brandin Campbell said in a statement.

Obviously, whining about money.

The vast majority of the cash raised by Jeff Landry and the other Republicans in the race came from inside the state. How come Shawn Wilson and the PACs supporting him can’t raise any?

There has been some $700,000 spent in the Senate District 31 race in an effort to beat Alan Seabaugh, and it’s all from the same sources that funded John Bel Edwards four years ago. That’s almost as much money as Shawn Wilson’s campaign and its affiliated PACs have put into the governor’s race on the D side.

This is what a collapse looks like. A bunch of people making excuses and pointing fingers while the walls cave in.

Just remember that a Democrat has been governor for going on eight years now. They had the opportunity to rebuild their party under John Bel Edwards and they utterly, completely failed to do it.

And on Saturday night they’re going to be almost completely wiped out other than in majority-minority districts. There will be only one white Democrat in the Louisiana Senate, and no more than a half-dozen white Democrats in the House. Those Democrats in statewide races who do manage to make runoffs face hopeless odds in November, and when it’s all over they will have virtually no influence or political strength to drive public policy at the state level at all.

We’re still quite concerned about the influence of RINO Bud Light Republicans who might get elected particularly in legislative seats, especially since so many of those are just unreconstructed old Democrats. But as to the Democrat Party in Louisiana, the funeral has already started.

Which is a good thing, and overdue.