Dear John,
Thank you for caring for women in Louisiana. I thought for sure this election cycle candidates would be forced to philosophically duke it out over whether or not our state's abortion laws were unconstitutional and more importantly a violation of human rights. I thought for sure that candidates would talk about what it means that the worst state to raise a family in had the nerve to criminalize doctors.
Sadly, I was wrong.
My opponent dodged every forum and even a televised debate. The newspapers cared more about a democratic woman versus a democratic women race than the fact that we have a super majority of Republicans who are completely beholden to oil and gas and far-right extremist groups.
I am not going to break it off lightly to you: we lost hard. But it was not just my race. Democrats across the state fell hard and everyone has a theory as to why.
Hardly anyone turned out to vote. The voter turnout was historically low despite the fact that it was basically a Trump versus Obama archetypal governor's race. The State Democratic Party operates so poorly that some speculate whether or not it is being run by controlled opposition. There were four major football games, including the Saints and LSU, plus the two major Historical Black College's homecoming games. We all wonder whether or not that was a coincidence.
There are 100k people in my Senate district who are old enough and able to vote. Only 70k registered. Of that 70k that registered only 28k voted. 22k for the far-right Senator incumbent. 3.5k for me and 2.5k for the other democratic women some speculate came into the race to just split votes. This is a very rural spread-out Senate District that is assumed to be very conservative.
We will never know the true makeup of the district's politics until the other 60% percent of the eligible voting population votes but for this race, conservative was how the cookie crumbled.
But I am thankful, thankful that I raised my voice and created a precedent for boldly advocating for women's rights and their bodily autonomy in the South. I opened the door for candidates to take the issue of choice head-on.
Doing this was not free. All of you made it possible. Thank you.
If you have it in your heart to give once more, it would help me close this election out without coming out of my personal pocket. I shouldered about 5k of the initial expenses and I did that because I knew that if I didn't believe in myself enough to invest in myself then I should not be asking anyone else to.
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