Challenge: Louisiana a swing state

Some particulars: the course of US and world history is roughly the same, no additional states or new global orders or anything like that. Likewise the US is split by the Democrats and the Republicans who represent the same things they do in OTL.
Other then that world's your oyster! Maybe New Orleans became a boom city like Miami in the 20s? Maybe there was a large migration of African Americans there after the civil war? Or during the 60s as a kind of experiment in the civil rights era?
 
Have an LSU student start a PC manufacturing company in his dorm room at the dawn of the computer age that becomes one of the largest tech companies. Said company works with the college that spawned it to create a computer science department capable of supplying plenty of tech workers, causing Baton Rouge to become third only to the Bay Area and Puget Sound as a tech capital.
 
In 1976 Louisiana went for Carter, and even in 1980 Carter was fairly close, though energy-producing areas like Louisiana were dissatisfied with his energy policy. In 1984 Reagan easily carried the state, but Reagan's 60.77% wasn't that much ahead of his national percentage (58.8). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984 In 1988 Louisiana went for Bush over Dukakis by only 54-44--not much different from the national total. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988 In 1992 and 1996 it went for Bill Clinton--indeed, in 1996 by twelve points, considerably more than his national margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1996 It's only since 2000 that it has really been substantially more Republican than the nation as a whole.
 
Hurricane Katrina really devastated a lot of low-income and African-American communities in the southern part of the state. Many left their homes and some never returned to Louisiana. While a "no Katrina" scenario wouldn't be enough to make Louisiana a swing state in and of itself, I have to believe it'd be more competitive in subsequent elections than was the case for OTL, especially if Democrats nominate Barack Obama or someone else who can really mobilize the African-American vote. The knock-on effect of this may also be to help stave off the decline of the Louisiana's Democratic Party in state and local elections (the 2015 gubernatorial election was largely a fluke owing to the fact that Vitter was an awful candidate).
 
Hurricane Katrina really devastated a lot of low-income and African-American communities in the southern part of the state. Many left their homes and some never returned to Louisiana. While a "no Katrina" scenario wouldn't be enough to make Louisiana a swing state in and of itself, I have to believe it'd be more competitive in subsequent elections than was the case for OTL, especially if Democrats nominate Barack Obama or someone else who can really mobilize the African-American vote. The knock-on effect of this may also be to help stave off the decline of the Louisiana's Democratic Party in state and local elections (the 2015 gubernatorial election was largely a fluke owing to the fact that Vitter was an awful candidate).

The 2004 presidential election was before Katrina, and Bush won LA by 14.5 points... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004
 
The 2004 presidential election was before Katrina, and Bush won LA by 14.5 points... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004

Sure, but he also won Georgia and North Carolina by over ten points that year, and in 2008 they were much more competitive - Obama even narrowly won in 2008.

Does that mean I think Louisiana would be as friendly to the Democrats as those states without Katrina? Not necessarily, but one shouldn't understate the demographic impact that the hurricane had - which was disproportionately felt among Democratic-leaning groups.

http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_d1bd4e2f-396b-5559-ad2a-baa37968d45e.html

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/us/04census.html

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katrina-washed-away-new-orleanss-black-middle-class/

So, assuming a world with somehow no other butterflies, Obama probably wouldn't win Louisiana in a no-Katrina world, but I wouldn't be surprised if he narrowed the margin to that of, oh, say, the Dakotas. This would also lead to Landrieu having a much easier time in that year's Senate race.
 
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There's also the point that Kerry was a poor fit for Louisiana, and didn't really try there. Gore in 2000 lost by about 7.7%.
 
You need to prevent the national Democratic Party’s leftward shift towards socially progressive positions over the past 20 years. That stuff plays very well out here in Oakland where I now live, but as a native Louisianan, I can tell you that the party’s shift towards a staunchly pro-choice position and the push for gay marriage has hurt its standing among the more devout Catholic and evangelical white populations within the state. Couple that with the slow decline of Blue Dog Democrats and it’s tough sledding for the Dems in the Pelican State.

Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium and the Democratic Party’s anti-fossil fuel platform also went over like a lead balloon in the state. Mary Landrieu’s Senate re-election bid was nearly single-handedly sunk by her inability to bring enough Dems to vote for Keystone XL after she campaigned as a Senate veteran who had enough clout to champion Louisiana’s interests as a Congressional committee chair.
 
Sure, but he also won Georgia and North Carolina by over ten points that year, and in 2008 they were much more competitive - Obama even narrowly won in 2008.

North Carolina has the Research Triangle, though, which provides a source of socially progressive white voters who are less common in most other southern states.
 
The problem with this scenario is that it would require a change that would need a seed planted a while ago. New Orleans would need to be a significantly larger city - maybe have the Dust Bowl or something similar destroy the more rural parts of the state and force people to an urban area sooner? But Louisiana isn’t really a Dust Bowl-conducive state. A Louisiana college student starts the next Facebook or there’s a Research Triangle/Silocon Valley there? Those usually include nationally renowned private universities. Silicon Valley is near Stanford and Cal. Research Triangle has Duke and UNC. Louisiana has...what now? One could cobble together Tulane and Loyola and maybe something else and make it work, I suppose, but Tulane is no Duke. If someone starts a program or a company out of a dorm in Tulane or something like that, it may increase the school’s reputation, but that won’t be enough to flip the state.

You need a somewhat different Louisiana. I suggest this - avert Prohibition nationally and make it a state issue. Let’s say the “amend the Constitution” strategy fails, and states instead amend theirs, similar to the ban on gay marriage. Louisiana doesn’t ban it but neighboring states do. So now you have a more liberal population in Louisiana that ends up congregating in a metropolis-like New Orleans, and voila - instant blue Louisiana. The state is probably very New Orleans-heavy, kind of like Illinois with Chicago in that case.
 
The problem with this scenario is that it would require a change that would need a seed planted a while ago. New Orleans would need to be a significantly larger city - maybe have the Dust Bowl or something similar destroy the more rural parts of the state and force people to an urban area sooner? But Louisiana isn’t really a Dust Bowl-conducive state. A Louisiana college student starts the next Facebook or there’s a Research Triangle/Silocon Valley there? Those usually include nationally renowned private universities. Silicon Valley is near Stanford and Cal. Research Triangle has Duke and UNC. Louisiana has...what now? One could cobble together Tulane and Loyola and maybe something else and make it work, I suppose, but Tulane is no Duke. If someone starts a program or a company out of a dorm in Tulane or something like that, it may increase the school’s reputation, but that won’t be enough to flip the state.

Austin's ascent to tech hub was kickstarted by someone who dropped out of UT, which is a public university, which is the scenario I was directly analogizing in my post above. Austin being in Texas is basically a fart in a hurricane, but Baton Rouge being an Austin analogue with significant knock on effects in NOLA similar to that which Austin has had on San Antonio, would make a much larger impact on LA.
 

raharris1973

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In 1976 Louisiana went for Carter, and even in 1980 Carter was fairly close, though energy-producing areas like Louisiana were dissatisfied with his energy policy. In 1984 Reagan easily carried the state, but Reagan's 60.77% wasn't that much ahead of his national percentage (58.8). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984 In 1988 Louisiana went for Bush over Dukakis by only 54-44--not much different from the national total. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988 In 1992 and 1996 it went for Bill Clinton--indeed, in 1996 by twelve points, considerably more than his national margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1996 It's only since 2000 that it has really been substantially more Republican than the nation as a whole.

Seems like it mainly just took about that long for people with fond memories of the New Deal or the Longs to die off.

Hmm- the Vampire L'Estat bites a lot of elderly Louisianians who turn into vampires. So, with them undead instead of dead, they keep voting. Although only after dark.
 
Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium and the Democratic Party’s anti-fossil fuel platform also went over like a lead balloon in the state. Mary Landrieu’s Senate re-election bid was nearly single-handedly sunk by her inability to bring enough Dems to vote for Keystone XL after she campaigned as a Senate veteran who had enough clout to champion Louisiana’s interests as a Congressional committee chair.

That's a yuuuge factor. Gore was also unfriendly to oil, which is why he kicked off the D losing streak in Louisiana.

I'd also be interested in seeing how badly Louisiana was hit by health care premium increases. I know we took it on the chin in Mississippi, and double digit premium increases helped flip the Rust Belt in 2016. So that could be yet another headwind in Louisiana.
 
Perhaps if the Cajun language enjoyed more protection all the way to modern times, Francophones would be more isolated from the culture of the rest of the South and more likely to vote as a block in occasional opposition to the anglophone areas. The already more liberal (in some ways) Cajun cultural values would bestronger and increased identification with France and Quebec could lead to a greater enthusiasm among this segment of the population for democratic politicians.
 

samcster94

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The problem with this scenario is that it would require a change that would need a seed planted a while ago. New Orleans would need to be a significantly larger city - maybe have the Dust Bowl or something similar destroy the more rural parts of the state and force people to an urban area sooner? But Louisiana isn’t really a Dust Bowl-conducive state. A Louisiana college student starts the next Facebook or there’s a Research Triangle/Silocon Valley there? Those usually include nationally renowned private universities. Silicon Valley is near Stanford and Cal. Research Triangle has Duke and UNC. Louisiana has...what now? One could cobble together Tulane and Loyola and maybe something else and make it work, I suppose, but Tulane is no Duke. If someone starts a program or a company out of a dorm in Tulane or something like that, it may increase the school’s reputation, but that won’t be enough to flip the state.

You need a somewhat different Louisiana. I suggest this - avert Prohibition nationally and make it a state issue. Let’s say the “amend the Constitution” strategy fails, and states instead amend theirs, similar to the ban on gay marriage. Louisiana doesn’t ban it but neighboring states do. So now you have a more liberal population in Louisiana that ends up congregating in a metropolis-like New Orleans, and voila - instant blue Louisiana. The state is probably very New Orleans-heavy, kind of like Illinois with Chicago in that case.
Erosion will always get in the way though.
 
Seems like it mainly just took about that long for people with fond memories of the New Deal or the Longs to die off.

Hmm- the Vampire L'Estat bites a lot of elderly Louisianians who turn into vampires. So, with them undead instead of dead, they keep voting. Although only after dark.

No need for vampires--dead people vote early and vote often in some places.
 
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