Voter Apathy Winning Louisiana Governor’s Race

Did you realize that in just 69 days you and I will head to the polling place in our respective communities and cast a vote for our choice for the next Governor of Louisiana? I can tell you're about as fired up about that as I am. This year's race for the state's top job has been unusually quiet. That's not my opinion that seems to be a prevailing theme across the political landscape. If you believe the results of a new survey just released the reason the race has been so quiet. Most of us just don't care.

LSU's Public Policy Research Lab has just concluded a survey in regards to the Governor's race and the findings of that survey are very disconcerting. The poll that was conducted between July 7th and August 3rd found that only 29% of Louisiana residents are even paying attention to the race.

Which is essentially no change from what we found when we last asked in March so it looks like voters are just not tuned in yet, it hasn’t caught their interest. The election is still a few months away, it isn’t crunch time.

Research Director Michael Henderson made those comments about the survey in a story published by the Louisiana Radio Network.

While that part of the survey was surprising, at least to me, the other findings of the survey were a lot more predictable. David Vitter, a sitting United States Senator, is the name most voters recognize and he leads in both the most favorable and unfavorable candidate categories.

Most of the three major candidates are struggling with name recognition, there aren’t many folks who feel one way or the other about Scott Angelle, Jay Dardenne or John Bel Edwards, yet.

Chances are all of the candidates will start to rally their supporters in the coming weeks as political ads will fill radio and television to the point that most Louisiana citizens will become sick of them. That is when we will see the interest in the race really start to pick up steam.

My guess is that you'd better enjoy these last few days of August because September 1st the airwaves will be clogged with all of the reasons why one candidate or another is not worthy of your vote. I don't think we will actually see candidates giving you a reason to vote for them until ten days before the election. It's going to muddy quickly but then again it is politics Louisiana style.

Voters will go to the polls on October 24th to vote for not only a new Governor but a Lt. Governor, State Attorney General, and many other statewide and local offices.