Black, White, Brown and Cajun: The Racial Dynamics of the 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Election

Abstract

The recent gubernatorial election in Louisiana suggests that racial issues remain salient in the Deep South. Pre-election polls showed Republican Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American supported by George W. Bush and Governor Mike Foster, with a comfortable lead. However, Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco may have benefited from white voters’ discomfort with supporting a brown-skinned Indian-American. Her performance, both absolutely and relative to normal Democratic showings, correlates strongly with the support won by David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klansman, who ran as Republican in 1991. These findings also suggest that efforts to build a more racially diverse Republican party may encounter resistance from white conservatives, especially in rural areas.

Beyond the Politics of Race? Explaining the Vote in Recent Louisiana Gubernatorial Elections

“…The defeat of Jindal led some to conclude that racial backlash may have played a decisive role in the 2003 election, with Jindal's skin color and his explicit appeal to the black electorate—reinforced by an endorsement from New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin—being a factor in driving erstwhile Republican voters into voting for Blanco. For example, Skinner and Klinkner (2004) evaluated aggregate‐level data to examine the parish‐by‐parish correlates of the vote in the 2003 election and found a significant relationship between support for Blanco and David Duke's vote in the 1991 gubernatorial election, one that was especially pronounced in the northern Louisiana parishes. The inference made—although one that could not be confirmed by individual‐level data—was that racially conservative voters were reluctant to support a nonwhite candidate, even when that candidate held issue positions that were congruent with their own.…”

“…These findings were challenged by Sadow (2005), who questioned using Duke's 1991 vote as a surrogate for racial backlash, and more generally claimed that Skinner and Klinkner (2004) were guilty of relying exclusively on aggregate‐level data. Using individual‐level data, Sadow claims to find no evidence of racial backlash voting.…”

“…First, it reexamines the role that racial backlash played in Jindal's defeat in the 2003 gubernatorial election. The racial backlash hypothesis was emphasized by both Bejarano and Segura (2007) and Skinner and Klinkner (2004). However, both analyses suffer from some major model misspecifications.…”

What Goes Around, Comes Around

“…Louisiana's 2003 gubernatorial race was previously examined by both Skinner and Klinkner (2004) and Sadow (2005). Skinner and Klinkner compared that race to the pattern of votes received by David Duke in the 1991 gubernatorial election and found a significant relationship between the number of votes received by Duke and Blanco, concluding that Louisiana's racial divisions led many white Republican voters to give their support to a white Democrat, rather than a nonwhite Republican.…”

Partisanship, Chauvinism, and Reverse Racial Dynamics in the 2003 Louisiana Gubernatorial Election

“…Running against a moderately liberal Democrat female, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, one pair of researchers has argued that some expected Republican voters defected from their tendency to vote for the party's candidates in statewide elections and voted for Blanco rather than Jindal because he is not white (Skinner and Klinkner, 2004).…”