President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump won landslide victories in their respective party primaries on Saturday in Louisiana, where Trump has held a decisive lead in the last two presidential elections.
In addition, the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party was ousted from her seat on the state’s Central Committee as progressive candidates won 56 seats and another 15 made it to the DSCC runoff.
In the presidential primaries, Biden received 86% of the Democratic vote and Trump 90% of the Republican vote. The results include early and absentee votes from all 64 parishes and all 3,833 precincts across the state.
Writer Marianne Wilson, former Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips, and Maryland plumber Stephen Lyons were the only Democratic candidates to receive 1% of the vote.
Nikki Haley, former US Ambassador to the United Nations and Governor of South Carolina, received 7% of the support of Louisiana Republicans, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis received 2% of the vote. Both suspended their presidential campaigns once it became known that Trump would secure the GOP nomination.
There were 105 progressive candidates running for 210 seats on the Democratic State Central Committee. Under the Blue Reboot brand, they ran on a platform to oust the current party chair, Katie Bernhardt.
Calls for Bernhardt’s removal from party leadership gained traction after the Republicans made a clean sweep in the state’s elections last fall, including the outright victory of Governor Jeff Landry in the primary.
Louisiana’s Democratic Party-backed candidate for governor, former Secretary of Transportation Sean Wilson, announced before Saturday’s election that he was backing the Blue Reboot candidacy. In her statement, Wilson criticized Bernhardt, who in early 2023 released a commercial in which she positioned herself as the state’s candidate. At the time, Wilson had not yet received the party’s endorsement.
Bernhardt lost her DSCC District 45-A race against challenger Madeleine Brumley Clavier, who is part of the Blue Reboot effort. Clavier received 64% of the vote.
Louisiana Democratic Party rules do not require its leader to be a permanent member of the DSCC, leaving open the extremely slim possibility that Bernhardt could be retained as a hair.
Forty-two members of the Blue Reboot ticket did not compete for seats on the DSCC, and 19 won their races on Saturday night.