The state Democratic Party will issue it’s official endorsements tomorrow night, hoping to find the right candidates to knock out a slew of GOP incumbents.
State Party Executive Director Stephen Handwerk says this year they’re celebrating the fact that 43 of the 77 women running for the state legislature are Democrats.
“Trying to build up our bench hoping to take on these challenges and hopefully make our elected representative look a little more like Louisiana.”
Only 15 percent of Louisiana legislators are women, the third-lowest rate in the nation.
Eleven Democrats are running for statewide office with two offices, Governor and Ag Commissioner, having multiple Dems in the race. Handwerk says they’ll issue endorsements for those, and other races Saturday at the State Central Committee Meeting.
“We certainly have been working incredibly hard to first build up our bench and build up the candidate that we need to take on these really powerful entrenched Republicans.”
The only statewide race without a Democrat is Insurance Commissioner.
There’s criticism that the party failed to find competitive candidates to take on any of the statewide GOP incumbents. Handwerk rejects that argument for two reasons. “To simply discount individuals because they have not run big campaigns before, or, it seems to be that the most ire came down on the candidates that happened to be African American.”
