[2] Despite this absolute single-party dominance, non-partisan tendencies remained strong among wealthy sugar planters in Acadiana and within the business elite of New Orleans.

[3] Until the rise of Huey P. Long, post-disenfranchisement Louisiana politics was dominated by the New Orleans–based “Choctaw Club”,[4] which overcame Socialist, Wobbly, and Progressive challenges from the outlying upcountry, Imperial Calcasieu and Acadiana regions between the late 1900s and early 1920s.

[5] The three presidential elections between 1916 and 1924 saw a rebellion in Acadiana over sugar tariffs and Woodrow Wilson’s foreign and domestic policies; however, the nomination of Catholic Al Smith in 1928 rapidly restored their Democratic loyalty without causing significant upheaval in the remainder of the state, which was too focused on control of black labour to worry about Smith’s Catholicism.

During the first term of Roosevelt, Long sought to capture the Presidency for himself under a “Share-Our-Wealth” program involving the confiscation of wealthy fortunes, family allowances, and government storage of agricultural surpluses.

Three years later, Louisiana’s lily-white one-party politics was shaken by Smith v. Allwright, which ruled white-only primaries as unconstitutional, and to which Governor Sam Jones responded saying We’ve always handled that question [black disenfranchisement]—and always will[10]Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt carried Louisiana in a landslide, defeating Republican New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey by a margin of 61.20 points,[12] and sweeping every parish in the state.