Last Precincts Give Cazayoux Victory in LA-06

by: tremayne

Sat May 03, 2008 at 22:59


After trailing all night, Don Cazayoux has pulled the upset in the special election for Louisiana's 6th congressional district:

Cazayoux (D): 49,312 (49%)

Jenkins (R): 46,282 (46%)

99% precincts reporting. Another upset in a red district.  Bad year to be a Republican. Congrats to those who worked on the campaign.

UPDATE: Looks like the GOP strategy of tying Democratic candidates like Cazayoux to the "radical" Obama has backfired. Maybe it helped Cazayoux.
tremayne :: Last Precincts Give Cazayoux Victory in LA-06

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Last Precincts Give Cazayoux Victory in LA-06 | 23 comments
looks like it might be a great year (0.00 / 0)
to work on Congressional races that start off (at least) off the radar screen.  Jenkins is said to be a weak candidate, but I think this is a sign of how the Republican brand has been destroyed.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
They're ALL Weak When They Lose (4.00 / 5)
If he'd won, he would have been "surprisingly strong."

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3
[ Parent ]
Wow (4.00 / 1)
That is so awesome. I love watching Republicans lose!
superdelegate status (0.00 / 0)
has he made any statements about whether he supports clinton or obama?
No, he's avoided saying. (0.00 / 0)
And there's this quote from the LA Times:

In Louisiana, a TV ad attacking Obama's healthcare agenda as "radical" proved so threatening that the House candidate it targeted, Democrat Don Cazayoux, distanced himself from Obama on Thursday, issuing a stern statement saying that he "has not endorsed any national politician."

[ Parent ]
No, the Obama ad worked just fine (0.00 / 0)
At least that would be my circumstantial judgment. You'd have to poll to see if what really happened. But Jenkins was behind as much as 10 points in the last SUSA poll, and clearly in others as well judging from the RNCC's spending patterns. And he almost pulled it off tonight, losing by only 3. If the SUSA poll was right, he gained 7 points in the last couple days. You could make a very strong argument that the only thing that changed in those days was the Obama ad.

Jenkins is well known to followers of true bat shit insane conservatives. He's a David Duke colleague, a perennial loser in LA Repub politics. I don't think he gained 7 points over the last week based on campaining skills. And now we have the winning Dem distancing himself from Obama. He knows.

Both parties will poll here to see what happened. If we start seeing Obama/Wright ads all over the place, we'll know what happened.

Good point. (0.00 / 0)
If the SUSA poll was right then maybe so. In the final week who spent more on advertising?
[ Parent ]
It actually helped Cazayoux (4.00 / 2)
Republican turn out was indeed up (although it could very well be because they realize they almost lost the seat last week) but the black turnout was even more up and it s that reservoir of votes in Baton Rouge that helped Cazayoux overcome the disappointing (compared with April) numbers in the rest of the CD.
[ Parent ]
PS (4.00 / 2)
You could argue that the main thing that changed between a POLL and the actual election is what they call GOTV.
Maybe you have heard of it ? Since when do we start comparing polls and actual election results to determine the effectiveness of an ad ?
[ Parent ]
Well.. We're gonna see Obama/Wright ads everywhere regardless (0.00 / 0)
That's the only thing they have to run on.

And bat shit insane conservative IS the conservative brand down there. I also wouldn't think Duke would be a liability but I don't know the demo of the district so I could be wrong.

You have the link to the SUSA poll?

[ Parent ]
I don't think there WAS a SUSA poll (0.00 / 0)
so I don't think you will be getting a link.
[ Parent ]
SUSA is crap (4.00 / 2)
Cazayoux's internal polls were almost exactly the same as the the results.

The ads probably helped turn on the racist Republican base and also the black vote so I don't think it had much of a impact besides higher turnout.  

John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

[ Parent ]
Yes, exactly, thank you (0.00 / 0)
I find it strange there's this assumption that SUSA's poll was exactly spot on.

Do you think Jackson's "hey, I'm running as an indie in November, feel free to stay home tomorrow" ads had any effect?  I was worried they would depress African-American turnout, but following it tonight it seemed like African-Americans saved Cazayoux at the end.  

Saxby Chambliss  

[ Parent ]
Here it is (4.00 / 1)
Here's the SUSA poll referenced upthread but it was conducted after lots of Republican $$ was spent tying to Cazayoux to Obama. Therefor I don't know that the ad "worked" but the poll and the final outcome are quite different. Maybe the poll was wrong, maybe GOTV (mentioned above) was a factor, or maybe something else. But the main thing is, this is a district that was in R hands for more than 30 years and NRCC and others spent money they don't really have to keep it. And lost.
Was The Poll Actually Wrong? (4.00 / 2)
Cazayoux's number was about right, maybe most of the undecided folks just went to Jenkins.
[ Parent ]
True (0.00 / 0)
With a margin of error of +/- 4.5% you could argue their result wasn't that off from the result.
[ Parent ]
The poll was weighted wrong ... (0.00 / 0)
it was 42% Dem, 42% GOP, and the rest were Indies.  The Indy vote was much, much lower than that.
[ Parent ]
LA-6 Was Has a PVI of R+6 (0.00 / 0)
The last time a Democrat won this congressional district was 1973.  LA-6 has a Cook PVI of R+7.  As Cazayoux won by 3 points, does that mean that every congressional district with a PVI of R+10 is in play this year?
Shoot! Title Above Should Say "PVI R+7" (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Yes, I Think So (4.00 / 1)
Bush has the highest disapproval rate of any President ever rated. The economy is sliding into a recession. The US is fighting two wars that are going terribly. Global warming is causing problems faster than scientists predicted. Corruption and cronyism in Washington are rampant (Enron, WorldCom, Halliburton, Blackwater, Jeff Gannon, Abramoff, Plamegate, Walter Reed, US Attorneygate, Pentagon Punditgate -- see Hugh's list for the most scandalous 34). The federal government is spying on everyone, torturing people, and lying about it.

And throughout this horrible period, the Republicans in Congress have stonewalled and stymied any effort to change the situation. Instead of impeaching Bush, they have called Democrats traitors for not wearing flag pins.

It seems that most people in the United States have finally caught on that the Republican Party has been taken over by corrupt wacko extremists. It seems that most people are now willing to turn out in large numbers and vote for any sensible Democrat.

In this environment, it is possible that any district that is less conservative than R+10 and has a reasonable Democratic candidate will be in play. This would mean that the Republicans really only have about 100 safe seats. And even some of these "safe" seats may be taken by Democrats (for example, Democrat Victoria Wulsin may beat "mean" Jean Schmidt in OH-02 and Charlie Brown may win in the seat of retiring Republican John Doolittle in CA-04).

[ Parent ]
Oops, Hugh Lists 349 Scandals (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
LA-6: I Used To Live in Red Stick (Batten Rudge, how the locals say it) (4.00 / 1)
LSU being in the district kept it from being a wholesale David Duke enclave, but it is home to Jimmy Swaggart-land, too, which added to the batshit component...

I am presuming it got a WHOLE lot more 'liberal' (a very relative term in Loosiyanna) after Katrina drove half the population out of Nawlins. Add the displaced Dems from Nawlins to the in-place population of (mostly transplanted) faculty and students at and around LSU, and BINGO!

Congrats all around.

The underemphasized story (4.00 / 2)
about this race is recruitment, and it is representative of the way that we have been kicking their ass in this respect of late all over the country.

Cazayoux is a great Democratic candidate for that district.  Yes, he's a blue dog, but only a blue dog is going to win there.  More importantly, he's young, personable, and talented and the national party clearly has had its eye on him for a while and enthusiastically supported his candidacy from the get go.  In contrast, Jenkins is a five time loser in major elections, a washed up politician with terrible favorability ratings.  He's exactly the type of guy that the national GOP should have tried to push to the side in favor of a stronger candidate.

While the race is indicative of our national strength, it was also just a simple story of a good politician triumphing over a weaker one.  And now hopefully Cazayoux can stick around for a while and help build the democratic brand in LA-06.  Recruitment may not be everything, but its a lot.

John McCain: Health insurance for low income children represents an "unfunded liability."

Last Precincts Give Cazayoux Victory in LA-06 | 23 comments
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