Melissa was off this week for Thanksgiving, so I staged a takeover of the Spectacle and grabbed my friend Justin Greiss, who works with Cliff Maloney as part of that amazing crew which essentially made the difference in Donald Trump and David McCormick flipping Pennsylvania red and is now in Baton Rouge working the runoff for the mayor-president race, to talk about what could be one of the biggest electoral upsets Louisiana has ever seen.

I’m not joking. The numbers bear this out.

I don’t assume that Sid Edwards will get all of the white vote in Baton Rouge. He won’t. Four years ago in the mayoral runoff, white voters outnumbered black voters 60,433 to 50,229, and yet Sharon Broome outpolled Steve Carter 65,495 to 50,353. So there were at least 10,000 white voters – which would be a good 17 percent, and it’s likely more than that – who crossed racial lines and voted for Broome.

OK, fine.

But given the last four years and the abysmal results of this incumbent’s administration, can she get 20-25 percent of the white vote like she did before?

By what argument could she get that? Crime is down? Traffic is better? The economy is booming? Government is suddenly honest? She’s done a good job handling St. George?

Does anybody believe any element of that?

We don’t have numbers for how much of the black or “other” (read: Hispanic or Asian) vote Carter managed to get four years ago. We’ll assume it was negligible. Do we assume that this time?

Well, some 28 percent of the primary vote went to Ted James. A chunk of that, at least five percent of the total vote, were white Republicans or independents who are likely to be solid Sid Edwards voters. Is it fanciful to think that some percentage of black or “other” voters would cast ballots for Edwards in the runoff?

Remember, Donald Trump got between 23 and 25 percent of black men nationally, according to exit polls. Trump managed nine percent of black women.

Can Edwards pull numbers like that? Well, he’s a high school football coach who’s spent this century at Redemptorist, Central and Istrouma, which are all well north of Florida Boulevard. Central is mostly white, but the areas around Redemptorist and Istrouma are monolithically black. He’s coached mostly black kids throughout his career as a head coach, and there are thousands of black families he’s positively impacted as a result.

You would think that would translate into black votes peeling off Broome – especially based on what a fabulous (to be sarcastic) job she’s done the last four years.

And as of this morning, the early vote numbers show that the electorate in this race is far, far more Sid-friendly than it was for Steve Carter four years ago.

As of close of business yesterday, some 24,069 voters had pulled a lever.

Of that group, 14,377 were white and 8,956 were black. Some 736 were “other.” That 59.7 percent white vote compares to 53.5 percent of the final electorate in 2020 (in the early vote in 2020, white voters were 52.8 percent). We don’t know whether there will be an increasing skew toward white voters on Election Day this time; that could happen, or there could be a bit of cannibalization happening.

We do know that GOTV efforts that Justin and his crew are undergoing in Republican areas of Baton Rouge are focused on low-propensity voters, as the chronic voters are being left alone under the assumption they’ll come out without help. Chronic voters do tend to vote on election day, so there is some reason to think the election day vote will get better for Edwards.

Now let’s look at the party breakdown.

In early voting in 2020, 11,302 Republicans came out. Compare that to 21,627 Democrats and 8.556 independents and others. That gave the GOP just 29.9 percent of the early vote that year. By Election night, the breakdown was 38,300 Republican, 60,114 Democrat and 18,194 independent and other, meaning the GOP share of the total electorate was 32.8 percent of the vote.

Carter managed 43 percent of the vote on Election Night in 2020.

So far in early voting this year, it’s 9,609 Republicans, 10,771 Democrats and 3,609 others. That means the GOP has a 39.9 percent share of the electorate to date.

Again, will the election day vote push that share above 40 percent? And if it stays the same, is it enough of a Republican electorate to win?

If 32.8 percent Republican translates to 43 percent, does a 40 percent (or 39.9 percent) share translate to 50 percent plus one?

I could predict it does but I can’t say for sure. What I can say is it’ll get Edwards damned close. And certainly close enough that you can’t dismiss what’s happening and just say “nah, a Republican can’t win in Baton Rouge.”

That sentiment is dead wrong.

Get out and vote for Sid Edwards and you can change the direction of Baton Rouge. This is the opportunity. Early voting continues today, Friday and Saturday, and Election Day voting happens on December 7.

Justin and I talked about what’s happening on the ground in the race, the circumstances coming together to produce this potential perfect storm and the reaction his people are getting as they canvass the potential Edwards votes in East Baton Rouge Parish. It’s definitely worth a listen.

The Spectacle Podcast: Can Republicans Win Urban America? with host @RVIVRdotcom and special guest Justin Greiss.

Available on @rumblevideo and all podcast platforms. pic.twitter.com/68ob0pgDAG

— The American Spectator (@amspectator) November 27, 2024