Louisiana Democrats will find themselves in an even deeper hole if national political trends continue rippling down to the state and parish levels.

Late last year, the U.S. Census Bureau released new state population estimates. Earlier this month, it released county population estimates. For Louisiana, the numbers were a mixed bag in absolute terms, but in a relative sense, they signaled an overall positive shift.

The state’s population grew to its highest since 2021—albeit at a slower rate than most other states. But the first half-year of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s tenure already marks an improvement over the eight years of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, when Louisiana lost over 100,00 folks. The gains were tempered, of course, by a net loss of U.S. citizens, offset by an increase in non-citizens, whether residing legally or not.

The data also revealed significant population losses in some parishes. Morehouse ranked among the top ten counties nationwide in population decline for areas with at least 20,000 people, and Caddo and Orleans made that list for counties with 100,000 or more residents. East Baton Rouge and Jefferson, like the state as a whole, reversed years of losing people (barely), while the other two largest parishes in the state, Lafayette and St. Tammany, showed healthy gains.

These results at the top end of population were a microcosm of a larger trend: reviewing the ten parishes with the biggest population increases and declines, parishes with unambiguously Republican leadership saw the strongest growth – and where Landry in 2023 received no less than 49 percent of the vote and as many as 30 points higher. Conversely, the biggest losers were clustered in north Louisiana, with both Republican- and Democrat-led parishes experiencing decline.

The same dynamic held for the most part for population change since the 2020 census where only nine parishes (a few overlapping for 2023-24 change, including Lafayette and St. Tammany) gained population, and among them, just West Baton Rouge didn’t have Republicans unambiguously in charge (with Landry receiving at least just over half of the vote in all); meanwhile, among the biggest losers, which included Democrat-run Caddo and Orleans, only two had GOP governance.

That replicates national results, where two of the biggest winners were the two most populous GOP-controlled states–Texas and Florida–and three of the biggest losers were three of the most populous Democrat-controlled states–California, New York, and Illinois. This has not gone unnoticed among the more astute observers on the political left, who bemoan the fact that this could produce as much as a 20-seat swing towards Republicans in the House of Representatives beginning in 2032, with the related Electoral College spillover threatening to solidify semi-permanent Republican dominance in both the House and the White House.

Louisiana is following the same trajectory. As Democrat strongholds lose population while Republican areas gain, the long-term impact on redistricting is clear. Democrats, already unable to win statewide executive offices and locked in permanent minorities on the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Public Service Commission, and Supreme Court, could soon find themselves in a superminority in both legislative chambers. With the majority party better positioned to draw favorable district lines, Democratic prospects will only worsen.

To reverse this, they can’t pin their hopes on a favorable decision in Nairne v. Landry, a case that seeks to make racial quotas the predominant criterions in reapportionment of state legislative chambers. This would force bodies to have the proportion of majority-minority seats within a chamber roughly reflect that proportion in the population, where Democrats historically have taken advantage of black voter fealty to them. Since this is likely not forthcoming, they must change direction entirely in order to attract more voters. State Democrats will need to abandon their far left agenda that seems mainstream only in academia and the legacy media but is widely rejected across most of the remainder of the country.

This policy shift could help them in two ways. First, it would make the party more appealing to the median voter. Second, if implemented at the local level in Democrat-run areas, it could slow the exodus of residents who are voting with their feet. But, given the echo chamber in which Democrat elites exist, don’t count on this happening anytime soon. For them electorally, things may have to get even worse before a political reckoning—and the possibility of catharsis—can begin.