Louisiana generally doesn’t get to play much of a role in presidential elections.
During primary season, the state doesn’t offer a particularly large cache of delegates, or an early election date that can attract candidate attention and offer voters outsized influence. Louisiana holds its primaries on an early March Saturday, usually days after Super Tuesday, which in 2020 will include a make-or-break vote in California. So by the time Louisianans get to make their choice from a narrowed field, the results are generally an afterthought.
And as for the general election, Louisiana once swung both ways but hasn’t chosen a Democrat since Bill Clinton won a second term in 1996. Republicans can now count on winning Louisiana’s eight electoral votes without lifting a finger, and certainly without bothering to spend time or money in the state.
But even though Louisiana at large is pretty much on the sidelines in shaping presidential elections these days, some the state’s political figures can have an impact — or at least try to.
As for Louisianans, though, that can be another matter.
Four years ago, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal entered a crowded Republican presidential primary with a resume that looked strong on paper, anyway. But an amateurish campaign, an increasingly dismal record as governor and the unexpected rise of Donald Trump put an early to end to his effort, and by the fall of 2016, he’d been largely forgotten by national voters.
This time around, it’s a Louisiana Democrat who is in line for a prominent role. And not the Democrat everyone was expecting to see on the big stage.
Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu spent the end of his term and the first part of his retirement from electoral politics doing what many potential candidates do: traveling the country making speeches, hawking an autobiographical book, and appearing on cable news shows. But when it came time to announce whether he’d be a presidential candidate, Landrieu stood down and instead made a pitch for former Vice President Joe Biden’s candidacy.
Landrieu will surely remain a prominent Biden backer, but another Louisiana Democrat is now poised to play a central role in the campaign. When the former vice president finally made his intentions official, it was U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, who went on network television to offer his endorsement. Last week, Biden made it clear that the regard is mutual when he named Richmond as his first national co-chair.
Nobody who’s being realistic would expect Richmond, the only Democrat in Louisiana’s eight-member Congressional delegation, to deliver the state for Biden or any of his primary rivals next November. But there are some things he can do.
As a former head of the Congressional Black Caucus, he can help Biden reach out to African-American officials and voters during the primary season, particularly in South Carolina, which is represented in the U.S. House by Richmond’s mentor, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. As current assistant to the Clyburn, the third-ranking official in the House, Richmond he might be able to influence fellow members.
In an interview with The New York Times last week, Richmond hinted at another goal: helping Biden overcome negative feelings among criminal justice reform advocates over his part in passing the 1994 crime bill through the U.S. Senate. That bill, which Clinton signed, has been widely linked to the mass incarceration of African-American people that followed. Richmond told the Times that the story is more nuanced than many understand, that a big part of the problem was implementation, and that Biden’s actions need to be viewed in the context of the times.
“It’s important for people to have a more meaningful conversation about it, as opposed to the talking points,” Richmond said.
If Biden doesn’t go all the way, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the trail for Richmond. He’s also described rival candidates Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, the Democratic senators from New Jersey and California, respectively, as friends. And he’s co-sponsored affordable housing legislation with yet another Democratic senator who’s running, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
So he’s keeping his options open, and as he’s said in some of those high-profile interviews, keeping his eye on the ultimate prize, defeating Trump. That surely puts him well in the Democratic mainstream, no matter who eventually emerges as the party’s nominee.
