2023 Louisianian General Election

2023 Louisianian General Election

4 July 2023 (2023-07-04)
All 255 seats in Parliament 128 seats needed for a majority
Registered	8,825,245
Turnout	68.1% (4.0pp)
First party Second party Third party   Candidate Jean Gigot Valérie Dubois Léon Cailloux Party Alliance UML ApL Last election 25.3%, 66 seats 7.5%, 19 seats 6.0%, 15 seats Seats won 106 65 32 Seat change 40 46 17 Popular vote 2,430,843 1,489,536 735,955 Percentage 40.4% 24.8% 12.2% Swing 14.6% 17.3% 6.2%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Candidate Thaaqib al-Rahman Broussard Landry Abraham Kraus Party Qumsa PC Ma'ayi Last election 6.5%, 17 seats 44.4%, 115 seats 3.2%, 10 seats Seats won 23 19 10 Seat change 6 96 Popular vote 531,596 422,287 231,495 Percentage 8.8% 7.0% 3.9% Swing 2.3% 37.4% 0.7%   Seventh party   Candidate Sébastien Soyer Party RCL Last election 5.6%, 14 seats Seats won 0 Seat change 14 Popular vote 96,159 Percentage 1.6% Swing 4.0%
First place winner by parish
Government before election Landry Cabinet PC–RCL Government after election Gigot Cabinet Alliance–ApL–Ma'ayi

Federal snap elections were held in Louisiana on 4 July 2023 to elect all 255 members of Parliament. The snap election was called after the emergence of War Appropiations Scandal, which saw several members of the Westin Cabinet, including prime minister Doug Westin, be implicated in a scheme to use federal troops enforcing occupation law in northern Louisiana to confiscate property and goods to be sold, with the resulting funds being funneled into the bank accounts of the implicated officials. The result was a landslide victory for the opposition Alliance and a wipeout of the Christian Rally and a near-wipeout of the Conservative Party. The election was originally intended for autumn of 2024.

The election was called on March 3, 2023 by the new Conservative Party (PC) leader, Prime Minister Broussard Landry, just over a year into his party's four year mandate. When Landry succeeded scandal-ridden the Prime Minister Westin and assumed office in February, his party was deeply unpopular due to a struggling economy and the implication of several members of party leadership in the same scandal which led to Landry's resignation. While Landry was never implicated in the scandal himself, his association as Deputy Prime Minister was enough to taint his reputation. In April, several dozen members of both the PC and its coalition partner, the Christian Rally (RCL), threatened to defect from the party if no elections were held and the far right Better Louisiana (UML) party selected the more moderate Valérie Dubois as its candidate, giving disaffected moderate conservatives an option separate from the PC. With these factors in mind, Landry chose to hold a new election in hopes of stemming the bleeding and to set the stage for a comeback in 2027.

With 40.4% of total votes, the Alliance recorded their best result in several election cycles, and emerged as the largest party for the first time since 2011. The ruling PC suffered a near-wipeout, losing 96 of its 115 seats and almost 85% of its vote share from 2022, dropping from 44.4% to 7.0% while its coalition partner, the RCL, was totally wiped out and failed to meet the threshold necessary to be represented in the Parliament. Native-rights party Qumsa saw moderate gains with 8.8% of the vote while the Jewish-rights party Ma'ayi saw a slight increase in votes but no change in seats with 3.9% of the vote. The centrist Alternative for Louisiana (ApL) doubled its vote share, taking 12.2% of the vote and becoming a coalition partner with the Alliance. The right-wing populist UML saw massive gains, tripling its share of the vote and taking many former PC and RCL voters, thus becoming the leading opposition party.

As the largest party, the Alliance was allowed to create its coalition but fell short of a majority of seats, leaving the Ma'ayi and ApL as kingmakers. On 18 July, following brief coalition talks, the Alliance formalized an agreement with both the ApL and Ma'ayi to form a traffic light coalition under Alliance leader Jean Gigot. Gigot and his cabinet would be elected on 12 August.