LA-04: Fleming Noses Carmouche in Two New Polls

After the Paul Carmouche campaign released a poll last week showing the Caddo Parish DA leading Republican John Fleming by 10 points in this open seat race, two new polls have been released tonight showing Fleming with a slight lead. Let’s check ’em out.

SurveyUSA for Roll Call (11/17-18, likely voters):

Paul Carmouche (D): 45

John Fleming (R): 47

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Public Opinion Strategies for John Fleming (11/17-18, likely voters):

Paul Carmouche (D): 42

John Fleming (R): 43

(MoE: ±4.9%)

There are a lot of unknowns about turnout here, particularly concerning the African-American turnout for this December 6th election. While the district is 33% black, SUSA pegs the black vote at 27% for this special election, and the POS poll split the difference at 30%. The Kitchens Group poll for Carmouche, interestingly, conservatively projected the black turnout to be 24%.

The DCCC is investing considerably in this race, having spent $448,000 on Carmouche’s behalf as of this afternoon, while the NRCC has dropped $279,000, most of which has been spent on media buys. However, the DCCC is also spending cash on field operations, which is something they employed successfully in other special elections this year (IN-07, LA-06, and MS-01). Just to give you a sense of the track record of the DCCC’s field program, they made significant independent expenditures for boots on the ground in seven races this fall (AL-02, AL-05, CT-04, LA-06, MD-01, MS-01 and NC-08) and won six of them. Of course, the one race of that batch that we did happen to lose was also in Louisiana, but other factors contributed to Don Cazayoux’s demise there that won’t be in play against Carmouche.