Politics of Louisiana

Louisiana has traditionally been a Democratic state for decades, due to New Orleans and the state's large African-American population. Regardless, most of its statewide Democratic officeholders, and its white Democratic officeholders outside New Orleans and Baton Rouge, have been quite conservative by national Democratic Party standards.

However, in the 1990s and 2000s, Democratic power in Louisiana waned, with Hurricane Katrina dealing a heavy blow to Democratic power. The 2010 election dealt the final blow to Democrats, turning over its final control in the state to Republicans.

In the decades following the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement and a concomitant reaction against cultural liberalism, the Republican Party gained strength in the conservative suburbs of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and for a time in Caddo Parish. The GOP over a long period of time drew increasing support among rural voters elsewhere, including parts of North Louisiana and Southeast Louisiana. These patterns follow trends in other southern states as white control of state Democratic Party structures weakened and the region became more diverse and more prone to adopt the two-party behavior characteristic of most the nation.

The political balance in Louisiana will likely be affected by the post-Hurricane Katrina exodus from New Orleans. Heavily Democratic New Orleans lost much of its population, and many of the former residents have not returned. The overall effect likely reduces Democrats' base of support in the state and could make Louisiana a Republican-leaning state in the future. Nevertheless, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu was elected overwhelmingly as mayor of New Orleans in February 2010.

Even in the early 20th century, Louisiana had a pocket of Republican strength centered about the sugar parishes west of New Orleans, where farmers favored the GOP's position on protective tariffs. According to The Louisiana Elections of 1960, whose authors include the late Louisiana State University sociologist Perry H. Howard, from 1920, the year of the election of Warren G. Harding as U.S. President until 1956, the reelection of Dwight D. Eisenhower, "a number of parishes, many in close proximity, have consistently supported the Republican party at close to or significantly above the presidential Republican vote average. Apart from some of the urbanized parishes, the majority of these parishes are in south Louisiana; in fact, they form a cluster in the sugar cultivation area west of the Atchafalaya swamp and along Bayou Lafourche and the Mississippi River below Baton Rouge."."

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