Editor's Note: This story has been updated to correct information about Louisiana Blue Team and Blue Reboot and clarify that a chair candidate needs a majority of votes to win.
The Louisiana Democratic Party will decide on Saturday whether to keep controversial Chair Katie Bernhardt or usher in new leadership.
So far Randal Gaines, a former state representative of LaPlace, and Bogalusa Mayor Tyrin Truong are the only candidates who have announced they’ll challenge Bernhardt.
But the playing field is open until the vote begins. A candidate doesn't have to announce their candidacy in advance and can even be nominated from the floor.
That means a last-minute candidate could split the votes against Bernhardt. Still a candidate will need to get more than 50% of the vote to win the seat, even if that means going to a runoff.
Public Service Commissioner and Blue Reboot member Davante Lewis generated some enthusiasm months ago when he said he was considering a run for chair. But he told Gambit he’s decided against it and will instead be running to become the state’s Democratic National Committee chairman.
“I have decided that my talents are better put being the voice of Louisiana on the DNC,” he said.
Democratic State Central Committee members, who were elected by registered Democrats last month, on Saturday will meet at the Union Labor Hall in Baton Rouge at 2:30 p.m. to be sworn in and vote for chair, vice chairs and other leadership positions.
Blue Reboot, a PAC who supported DSCC members who pledged to vote Bernhardt out, got 61 of its candidates elected to the state committee last month. If its members vote together, they could make up an important voting bloc Saturday. That group of members has not publicly endorsed a candidate for chair yet.
Gaines told Gambit several state legislators asked him to run for party chair, and he appears to have garnered the support of some in the party. At least 17 Democratic state legislators are also backing Gaines, according to a post on his Instagram, though only four of them hold seats on the DSCC. Progressive group Louisiana Blue Team is also supporting him.
Gaines, a trial lawyer, touted his leadership positions as evidence he’s up for the job, including representing the state on the Democratic National Committee, chairing the Legislative Black Caucus, as well as in the Louisiana National Guard and in the civil rights organization Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
He said as leader of the party he would want to focus on showing people how government can make positive changes in their daily lives.
Former state Rep. Randal Gaines at the State Capitol in 2021.
“You have to be able to develop messages that address the things that matter most to the people, the things that make a difference in their home, make a difference at their doorstep,” he said.
To do this, he would want Democratic Parish Executive Committees, who organize the party at the local level, act as community problem solvers, connecting residents with elected officials or others who can help address their issues.
That could also look like finding available government grants for small towns to complete infrastructure and water projects or helping people oppose unwanted industrial projects in places like Cancer Alley. He said this strategy would particularly help energize voters in rural areas he says “are generally the ones that are most overlooked.”
“We're coming from behind,” Gaines said. “We can no longer just operate within the political dynamics; we have to expand our footprint in the areas of community service.”
For fundraising, Gaines said that in addition to asking large donors like foundations and PACs for money, the party needs to prioritize small, grassroots donations, which he said have brought in millions of dollars to Georgia’s Democratic Party. He said he would spend a “minimum” of 10 hours a week making calls to potential donors.
Gaines also said he would get the party to launch “aggressive voter registration” efforts, train members of College Democrat groups to be leaders and encourage people who are already community leaders to seek office.
"Good leaders don't make excuses when they have failures,” Gaines said. “Good leaders find ways to overcome those shortcomings.”
Bernhardt, on the other hand, faces an uphill battle for reelection. Last month, she lost her seat on the DSCC to Blue Reboot’s Madeleine Brumley Clavier, and on top of the organized effort to oust her, has also lost some of her original supporters.
She was elected as chair in 2020. Her predecessor Karen Carter Peterson pleaded guilty to taking more than $50,000 from the state party.
Some in the party criticized Bernhardt after she appeared in an ad in January 2023, in which she appeared to be mulling a run for governor. That criticism only intensified after Democrats’ poor showing in the election cycle, in which they failed to field candidates in a majority of state House and Senate races or even get their candidate for governor, Shawn Wilson, to force a runoff.
In an interview with Gambit last year, Bernhardt said the party was in a “tough spot” when she took over, but she said under her leadership the party has worked to revitalize DPECs across the state.
Katie Bernhardt shoots a gun in a political advertisement.
Blue Reboot organizer Lynda Woolard, who ran against Bernhardt for chair in 2020, told Gambit last month “I haven't talked to many people or heard a tale of many people who are saying that [Bernhardt’s] the right course to continue taking.”
In response to a request for an interview, Bernhardt sent a lengthy statement to Gambit Friday, in which she said Woolard and Drew Prestridge, another Blue Reboot organizer, “represent failed leadership of the past” because they’ve previously held leadership roles in the party.
“It’s curious that Ms. Wollard [sic] has become so vocal with her unfounded attacks against me and our dedicated team, who have been tirelessly rebuilding our party parish by parish, overcoming years of corruption, mismanagement, federal investigations, and the like,” she wrote.
Bernhardt said under her leadership the party has conducted Get Out the Vote efforts, invested in rural parishes through grants, trained candidates and volunteers and more. She cited the victory of Sheriff Henry Whitehorn in Caddo Parish in a court-ordered recount against Republican John Nickelson as an example of a success for the party under her leadership.
“The committed members of the DSCC won’t be swayed by baseless attempts to sow division and undermine our progress,” Bernhardt wrote. “When I was elected chair four years ago, the same group was overwhelmingly rejected by the membership.”
At 24, Truong is the youngest candidate in the race. He was elected mayor of Bogalusa in 2022, defeating incumbent Wendy Perrette, a Republican, and becoming the youngest and first Black mayor in the city’s history.
Though located in a conservative parish where Trump won handily in 2020, Bogalusa is diverse, with Black people making up about 45% of the residents and white people making up 50%. The town of about 10,400 has seen its population decrease and poverty increase in recent years as paper mill jobs declined.
Since being elected, Truong has had a mixed strategy to address crime in Bogalusa. He's tried community policing, implementing crime cameras and setting tougher curfews for minors. He’s also introduced programs to feed poor people and the unhoused and has increased the number of recreational youth sports teams in the area.
Truong told WWNO in November that Democrats need to do “a better job of coalescing around one set message as a party” and getting community organizations to help carry that message.
“That’s what campaigns are about,” he said. “I just think we failed at that.”
Current Chair Katie Bernhardt faces an uphill battle.
The Louisiana Democratic Party has been ghosting the state's voters.