Issue #165: Continued Dixiecrat Revolt in the Louisiana Democratic Primaries

A long history of rejecting a Democratic President

On Saturday, Louisiana voters went to the polls for the Democratic and Republican Presidential primaries, as well as a slew of other local races. Both Presidential Primaries were considered formalities, as both Donald Trump and Joe Biden have secured their party nominations.

The primaries were indeed a sleepy affair, with Donald Trump securing 90% for the GOP and Biden securing 86% for the Democrats.

Now I know what you are thinking - “Matt why on God’s green earth are you making me read about the Lousiana Democratic primary.” Trust me! Its interesting.

As a keen observer of the above NYT map would noticed, several parishes have much lower Biden support. Also, do 5% of Louisiana Democrats really like the far-left, crystal-healing Marianne Williamson? Also, who are these other random folks taking thousands of votes?

The answer is what I want to talk about. The legacy of Louisiana’s conservative, white “Dixiecrat” voters.

A History or Protest Votes

Anyone who has been following my writings for even a short time would know I am interested - or maybe obsessed - with protest votes cast by conservative Democrats. These are your type of old yellow-dog, or as I often say, “Dixiecrat,” voters that remain registered with the party but are far more conservative than the national or maybe even state organization. Many of these voters still back Democrats down ballot, often Democrats who are likewise “Democrats in name only.” In Florida, this has been a long noticed thing in the state’s Northern panhandle. I wrote about the conservative protests seen in 2022. These protest votes have shown up as well in states like Kentucky and West Virginia; where coal county Democrats rebel from the larger party because it has become “too liberal” - especially on social issues. The protest votes are best seen in states with party registration (many states don’t do registration by party) and have closed primaries; meaning a conservative Democrat could not decide to pick the Republican ballot instead.

Louisiana is one of these closed-primary states. Long a Democratic bastion, it, like so much of the deep south, finished its slow crawl to the GOP in the last decade or so. While it had elected Republican Governor’s for decades, the 2010-2011 era saw the Republicans take control of the legislature for good. Slowly the legislature got more Republican and statewide Democrats lost their posts. The last gasp was Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards, who after being termed out in 2023 saw the Republican Attorney General, Jeff Landry, easily win.

Despite all that, Democrats still maintain a lead in voter registration, albeit one that is narrowing and will soon be flipped to the Republicans. Part of the slow trend has been that the state’s Jungle Primary system, where all voters run on one ballot, means few primaries are actually “closed.” For much of recent history, only a few races, like Presidential Primaries, were actually closed. Therefor, many conservative Democrats who may often be voting for Republicans in the jungle primaries didn’t need to rush to change their registration. As a result, many conservative “democrats in name only,” or those only voting Democrat for their local sheriff or the like, still remain eligible to vote in the Democratic Presidential Primaries. The result has been many years of protests votes.

This dynamic might change soon too, as Louisiana recently passed a law to make most of its major elections, including federal and state races, regular closed primaries. This could lead to a mass exodus of conservative Democrats who would rather vote in the Republican side. We will see.

This conservative protest vote was seen pretty clearly in 2012 during Obama’s re-election. In the primary contest, which saw Obama only face no-name opponents, Obama actually lost three parishes and came under 50% in several more.

These results were not unique to Louisiana, occurring in several other states with conservative democrats as well. As I wrote about with West Virginia, Obama lost several coal counties to Keith Judd, a perennial candidate then sitting in prison. In the Kentucky Primary, “uncommitted” won many coal counties. These votes were, to be very clear, not left-wing opposition. This was conservative, and near universally white, voters. There is a notable history of Hispanic protests in the Texas primaries, but that’s beyond this article’s scope.

In 2016, the protest vote showed itself again. Hillary Clinton easily bested Bernie Sanders in the Louisiana primary thanks heavily to her dominant support with black voters. Sanders was strongest in the rural, white parishes, taking some of that conservative protest. Sanders taking conservative protest votes occurred in several primaries that year, with exit polls often showing “conservative” self-ID’d folks backing him, largely out of a fierce vitriol to Hillary Clinton and the party at large. This made Sander’s primary wins unique in that he was the choice of very liberal Democrats, who truly liked him, but also a vehicle for conservative protests. In 2020, Biden was able to win back some of those voters, but in the four years many had also gone to the GOP on the rolls, and protests remained, but funneled to other candidates.

The data point I wanted to highlight for Louisiana in 2016, however, was about the “other” candidates running. In total 5.7% of the voters opted to reject both Clinton and Sanders, giving their votes to a slew of others.

The protest vote was highest in the heavily white parishes, also areas where Sanders was performing best. At the time, Democratic registration was still strong, so many DINO voters remained, and they opted for literally anyone but Sanders or Clinton.

The 2020 primary also saw protest votes, but that primary, delayed for months amid COVID delays, is such a mess that I don’t want to focus on that due to its unique status. The 2016 results, however, made me keen to watch Louisiana Saturday night and see what protest votes would occur.

The truth was, I expected some protest vote, but perhaps a more muted one. After all, since the 2016 contest, voter registration had swung heavily to the Republicans, with many white parishes seen MASSIVE shifts.

In total, the electorate got 13 points ,ore Republican. As a result, the remaining Democrats were also less rural and white. In 2016, 53% of Democrats were black, today they are 61% black. On top of this, the correlation with a 2016 protest vote and a shift to the Republicans in terms of registration is VERY strong: 0.72 (perfect would be 1.0).

Notable that Orleans, which had the lowest protest vote in 2016, also has the only net gain for Democrats in voter registration.

In the primaries that have taken place so far, Biden’s best showing has been with black voters. So we’d be looking at a Democratic primary more black than ever before, and how many of these conservative democrats would bother to show up? Not every parish was holding local contests, so the chances of a protest being very specific in some parishes seemed likely.

Well I underestimated the Louisiana DINOs, they delivered a far bigger protest than I expected.

The 2024 Democratic Primary Results

When all the parishes reported for the Louisiana, Biden secured 86% of the vote. This was stronger than Obama’s 2012 performance, but still saw 14% voting for other candidates.

In the primary, not only did Marianne Williamson take 5% and Phillips took 3%, but 6% went to one of five additional candidates. Biden actually narrowly fell below 50% in Cameron Parish, a longtime site of Dixiecrat protest votes, also the most white.

The most striking data point when it comes to the protest votes is race. The whiter parishes were the source of these anti-Biden votes. Meanwhile, the more African-American a Parish is, the higher Biden’s share of the vote. The correlation between Biden share and Black share of the parish is very strong. I’ve also included a helpful meme for those who don’t like line graphs.

I’ve covered the anti-Biden votes in places like Minneapolis or Dearborn. Those protests are driven by either left-wing opposition or specifically Gaza war opposition. Here in Lousiana, though, its a story of conservative protests like previous cycles. Black voters, meanwhile, continue to show strong support for Biden.

So Biden won every Parish. Who came in second in each?

Williamson was strongest in the same parishes with long history of protest votes from both 2012 and 2016. Similar to what happened with Sanders in 2016, Williamson is sucking up some of that conservative opposition. This may seem shocking to politically astute readers since Williamson is so left-wing. However, its worth remembering her underfunded campaign isn’t known to most, with many only knowing her as “that lady is running as anti-establishment.”

While Williamson and Dean Phillips were there to be anti-Biden syphons, there were five additional candidates running. The list was an assortment of, as I say, “randos.” These are a mix of perennial candidates and overall people with no real campaign or infrastructure. These are people who have even smaller of a base as Phillips or Williamson. Several, like Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, had already dropped out. They combined to 6.6% of the vote, which toped over 15% in several parishes.

This map looks very similar to the 2012 protest map. Among the “randos,” Lyons took the most parishes, followed by Ely. Lozada took a handful of parishes as well, with some ties. These were very much votes for just “anyone that isn’t those names I know and don’t like” and is the unquestioned height of protest voting.

Turnout by Party

On top of all this, there is ANOTHER way to judge voter enthusiasm or “opposition” - turnout. Democratic turnout for the primary was 14.6%. This fell below the GOP’s 19%. The turnout (and turnout difference) can be seen below.

Many of the same precincts with histories of protest voting had lower turnout. While many of the white Dixiecrats who bothered to show up rejected Biden, many more just didn’t both to show up at all.

In total, the Republicans made up 54% of the vote cast between the two parties. There were non-partisan voters showing up for local races as well, but as I don’t have all those totals, I stuck with just D v R here.

So while we can see that “oh there are a large number of Democratic voters, why isn’t Louisiana a swing state” is answered by just how many of those Democrats are DINOs that will absolutely be voting for Trump in November.

While the Republicans outpaced Democrats statewide, the blue team did hold the lead in Caddo , a plurality-black parish northwest end of the state. In fact, that was the home the highest Democratic turnout. A big reason for that was a special election for Sheriff. In November of 2023, Democrat Henry Whitehorn won the post of sheriff by ONE vote. However, Republican John Nickelson sued and when it was determined at least a few voters cast ballots when they shouldn’t have been able to, a re-run was ordered. This time, Whitehorn would go on to win this re-match by over 4,000 votes to become the first black sheriff for Caddo Parish.

The higher turnout is likely aided by the high-profile sheriff’s race. Of course its also likely Whitehorn was helped by the race being the same day as the Presidential primary. Registered Republicans were very invested in this race too, and they had higher turnout, but thanks to the Democratic registration advantage and a healthy chunk turning out, the parish had a Democratic advantage in votes cast, plus thousands of NPA voters who showed up just for that race.

Looking Ahead

This almost surely won’t be the last time I discuss protest votes in the Democratic primaries. I am positively eager for the Kentucky and West Virginia primaries to further monitor coal counties. In addition, I plan some pieces on left vs right protests across different states.