And by we, I mean I.

I said this, in a piece discussing the LAGOP’s decision to endorse Misti Cordell in the 5th District congressional race last week…

More than likely, the runoff in December will be a D-vs.-R affair. Pat Moore, a state representative from Monroe, is likely to lead the primary field, but there’s a pretty hard ceiling below 50 percent for her. No national money is coming in for Moore; she’s going to get the black vote in the district, which is 27.5 percent of the electorate, plus maybe a little more. The fight between Cordell, Echols and Cathey is for the 70 percent or so of the district which is white (with a smattering of Asians and Hispanic voters).

We can’t really handicap that three-way race at this point. Cordell getting the party’s endorsement cannot hurt her, of course, and should President Trump make an endorsement in the race it’s quite likely that will decide it.

In my defense, this is sort of a conventional-wisdom take, and it’s not wholly unsupported by history. Since Louisiana’s congressional map has evolved into its current form, which essentially created the 5th District as a Cenla/Northeast Louisiana district with a tail stretching down into the Florida Parishes (with the exception of the 2024 map that was thrown out in the Callais case, it’s been this way for more or less the whole 21st century and even a little before), it’s always been somebody from Monroe, or the area around Monroe, who has represented LA-5.

Julia Letlow, Doc Abraham, Vance McAllister, Rodney Alexander, John Cooksey… all Monrovians, or pretty close to it. People from the Alexandria area have generally struggled to crack the code.

And so Gabe Firment, who is an outstanding conservative state representative from Pollock, which is directly north of Alexandria, got left out of our analysis.

It didn’t help that I was rushing to finish that article so as not to be late for an appointment. That’s not an excuse. I should have talked about Firment; I’m going to fix that now.

The thing to remember about the current iteration of the 5th District is that for all the attention paid to Monroe as its political center, most of the population of the district is actually south of that city. Historically that hasn’t mattered, but it might this time.

Because with Misti Cordell, Stewart Cathey and Michael Echols battling house  to house in Monroe and Pat Moore, the main Democrat in the race, likely able to claim a spot in the runoff, Firment might just ride Central Louisiana to a spot in the runoff alongside Moore. Figuring that Moore is good for about 30 percent of the vote in the jungle primary, in a relatively even fight among the four Republicans, 25-30 percent of the vote would likely do that, and it’s not unreasonable to see a scenario where Firment can manage that simply by leveraging the central part of the state.

If that happens he’d beat her pretty substantially.

Can Firment get a campaign off the ground? Well, he managed to raise $300,000 in a month after declaring for the race, which isn’t a big stash but it also isn’t nothing.

And Firment has a couple of things he can tout. First, he’s the chair of the House Insurance Committee, which might be something of a mixed bag but Firment can at least say that he’s shepherded bills that have bent the curve down – insurance rates have somewhat stabilized in the last couple of years and some carriers are beginning to lower them.

And second, he’s the author of the pediatric sex change bill that the Left went so ballistic over before its passed, so Firment can note that he had the stones to do something everybody knew needed to be done but wasn’t done until he did it.

I’m not making any predictions on the race. There is a credible case to be made for Firment pulling an upset. That has happened in the 5th District before – McAllister being a perfect exception. Gabe Firment is a whole lot safer underdog than McAllister was. He has an actual conservative record and would make a fine congressman – as would the others.

Anyway, hopefully this will offer a more complete view of the 5th District race.