New poll numbers give better insight on governors race

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - When you take Jeff Landry’s name out of the mix, a poll conducted by Gray Media, the owners of WAFB, and Mason-Dixon Polling Strategy shows more people have no idea who the other candidates are than those that do.

“Basically, most of the candidate campaigns have failed,” said national polling expert, Ron Faucheux.

Faucheux ran his own numbers and says name recognition has been a steep hill for the rest of the candidates to climb, with half of them never even holding an elected position. Part of the problem is the lack of money supporting their campaigns, and the other is the lack of voter engagement in our statewide elections.

“I think there is less voter interest than there should be,” Faucheux added.

According to Ron, folks within Baton Rouge remain relatively engaged, but outside the city, it becomes less common. Though there hasn’t been much change, it’s worth pointing out a slight jump in Republican Stephen Waguespack’s name and Independent Hunter Lundy.

But still, Landry and Shawn Wilson are the two big players. And in a runoff between the two Landry sits at 52% with Wilson at 39%, showing 70% of whites support Landry and 74% of blacks support Wilson.

However, Wilson still has an anchor tied to him.

“Wilson gets 60% of the vote among democrats, but only 35% of democrats have ever heard of him,” Faucheux explained.

At the moment it’s unclear if those who don’t know him will be motivated enough to turn out on election day. Those votes could also potentially end up in Lundy’s favor since so many are fed up with the two-party system. Political analyst, Jim Engster, says the window of opportunity is closing quickly and the others will need to find a way to spark turnout.

“But the question is whether they can and at this point, unfortunately, it appears that most people in Louisiana who are registered to vote won’t be cast in ballots on October 14th,” said Engster.

Taking a quick look at the numbers coming out of Baton Rouge, you can see Landry is at 33%, Wilson at 19%, Waguespack at 18%, while the rest are undecided.

Early voting begins September 30th and election day is on October 14th.

Click here to report a typo.

Copyright 2023 WAFB. All rights reserved.