Black Voters Scapegoated For Louisiana Electing Suspected White Supremacist

By, Bruce C.T. Wright, NewsOne

The end result was Republican Jeff Landry winning the race by receiving more than 52% of the electorate – a threshold that eliminated the need for a runoff election and flipped a seat that was held by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards since 2016.

But another byproduct of Saturday’s election was the scapegoating of Black voters after exit polling data showed their low turnout for a political contest in which the leading Republican has been accused of being a white supremacist who particularly champions anti-Black policies.

John Couvillon, a Louisiana-based pollster and CEO of JMC Enterprises, a data analytics and consulting firm, pointed to low Black turnout as a primary reason why Landry was elected.

On Saturday, an estimated 17% of voters who went to the polls were Black, Couvillon posted on the social media app formerly known as Twitter. The numbers weren’t much better among early voters, with just 26% of people casting ballots ahead of Election Day being Black. In total, 72% of Louisiana’s white voters participated in the election compared to 24% of Black voters, Couvillon added.

The voting along racial lines corresponded with their respective preferred candidates, with Black voters overwhelmingly supporting the candidacy of Shawn Wilson, Louisiana’s former Secretary of Transportation and Development, who is African American. Wilson got 70% of Black voters’ ballots to just 12% for Landry.

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