Get on out there and capture the magic. Here are some tips for those placing wagers on things.
Cantrell 62% Charbonnet 38% Spread could actually go higher so watch for that
Banks 50% plus just a little itty bit over Bloom The Cantrell wave in the turnout would ordinarily favor Bloom but a lot of people also seem to hate him so.. it will be close
Gray 54% Nguyen 46% Tthis is just based on the primary numbers plus some educated guesses but if it goes differently don't come yell at me
Schroder 60% Edwards 40% The Democrats could have gotten their shit together and actually try to elect a Treasurer. They didn't.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards pledged Friday morning to help Jay H.
Banks win the District B seat on the New Orleans City Council, but said
he does not intend to make an endorsement in the hotly contested mayor’s
race.
Edwards appeared with Banks at a prayer breakfast Friday morning at
Delgado Community College. After an introduction by representatives of
several different faiths, Edwards praised both Banks’ character and his
decades of public service in city government.
“You may not think there’s much tie-in between the governor of the
state of Louisiana and a district councilman in New Orleans,” Edwards
said. “But the truth is, it takes teamwork at all levels.”
A moment later, however, Edwards said he would not be endorsing in any other city-level races.
“You won’t see me involved in any other race in New Orleans,” Edwards
said. “But I felt the need to be here for Jay, just like he was there
for me.”
This has to be good news for Banks that he has the backing of the state's highest ranking elected Democrat as well as the Chair of the state party. Unfortunately they allowed her to speak too.
State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson was among the speakers, and she
among her praise for Banks’ readiness to lead District B, she also took a
thinly veiled jab at Seth Bloom’s disclosure of a past opioid
addiction.
“It is important that you have people who can spend full time on
this, and not have to be focused on recovery in other ways,” Peterson
said. “We all have issues. We all have times when we have suffered, and
our families have suffered. People have depression, people have other
issues in their family, and those need to be tended to very carefully. I
don’t take that lightly, but in this role, with what we are facing in
this community, we need somebody who is competent and is of the
community, and who has character.”
Come on, man, there are plenty of legitimate things to go after Bloom for and this personal (and frankly, humanizing) issue is what we're gonna fixate on? Do better. When Michelle Obama told Democrats to "go high" this is not what she meant.
Also it's pretty funny that Derrick Edwards was in the room watching the party big wigs who haven't lifted a finger to help his statewide campaign spend their morning on this district level council race. That must have been fun for him.
Handwerk said several other Democrats were interested in running for
treasurer but that it is difficult for a Democrat to get into a runoff
if more than one member of the party is on the primary ballot; the
Democratic candidates split the party vote. Edwards made it clear that
he intended to stay in race, regardless of who else entered it.
"Leading up to qualifying for the Louisiana treasurer race we had
several interested folks, but we all knew it wasn't viable to have more
than one Democrat in the race and Derrick Edwards was already running
and one of the first to qualify," Handwerk said.
That is ludicrous. Either run a bigger name candidate or back the one you have. If the reason there's only one Democrat is because there can be only one then, for chrissakes, you need get behind the one. These were your rules to begin with. Live by them.
That isn't what they're doing, though. Instead they're out working to elect a Republican.
At least a handful of high-profile New Orleans Democrats appear to
have decided that (State Senator Neil) Riser is an option, possibly because Schroder has made
clear he will probably attack John Bel Edwards' budget and tax
proposals if elected. Schroder also withdrew his support last year for
state Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, in the House speaker's race,
rubbing many New Orleans Democratic legislators the wrong way.
Thus state Sens. Troy Carter, Wesley Bishop and JP Morrell, all
Democrats from New Orleans, organized a free-lunch meet-and-greet for
Riser at Dooky Chase's restaurant Tuesday. Bishop's involvement is
particularly noteworthy, as he is vice chair of the state Democratic
Party.
They say they're doing this because they think Riser "is honestly running just to be Treasurer," instead of turning the office into a trolling platform the way John Kennedy did for 17 years. Riser hasn't actually said this is his plan, though. As we explained yesterday, there's really not much of a point to just being Treasurer. People run for this office because it leads to things. That the Democrats can't get out their way in time to seize an opportunity like that and build their own party's strength is no reason to pretend otherwise.
Here's the Advocate's run down. So far no sign of David Duke. But the purpose of his name having been floated at all was to make Steve Scalise talk about him so that's mission accomplished already. Bonus points for making him talk about Duke and Trump at the same time.
One of those leaders, U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, the
Jefferson Republican who ranks as third in the House leadership, said
the reason is that voters are frustrated with the direction of the
country. He said Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, if
elected, would overturn regulations that has hampered economic growth.
Scalise
also called David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader who is flirting
with a challenge to him, a racist with anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic
views.
Also of note in this article, Kip Holden and Cedric Richmond don't like one another.
Holden, who is term limited and must leave office in January, says he
has been approached by a number of constituents who felt that Richmond
was not doing his job, like attracting business to the district.
“If
there wasn’t a problem, I wouldn’t be running,” Holden said, “The
people of Baton Rouge have mostly been in the lost and found section”
for Richmond.
Richmond suggested that Holden should resign as
mayor of Baton Rouge if he planned to run for congress. The tensions
that have grown from the police shooting of Alton Sterling followed by
protests and the murder of three law enforcement officers requires the
focus of a full-time mayor.
Richmond, whose district includes
north Baton Rouge, said Gov. John Bel Edwards showed real leadership
during the crisis this month “because the mayor was locked in his
house.”
At the same time, though, we learned that both Richmond and Holden fully support abusive police tactics in Baton Rouge so what difference does any of this even make?
Other things happened. Joe Cao is running for some reason. Derrick Edwards qualified for Senate instantly negating his own declaration, "I am not a politician and I will never be a politician."
My name is Abhay Patel, and I’m a candidate for the United States
Senate. I’m a proud Louisianan, and I have the ability, experience and
vision to serve the people of this great state. If elected, I vow to stand for limited government, individual liberty and local empowerment.
Abhay Patel, a New Orleans businessman, also qualified to run for the
Senate as a Republican. “I’m the only candidate who never run for office
before,” he said.
But this is already a lie because of the day's one true bombshell announcement.
Kaitlin Marone, of New Orleans, qualified to run without party
affiliation, saying nobody is paying attention to the race right now and
she didn't want the Republican Party to appoint whoever they want to
the post.
Marone is a local comedian who we're pretty sure has never run for office before. [UPDATE: Confirmed!] Here is her first campaign ad (that we're aware of, anyway.)
