November 16, 2023
Can Louisiana Use the Treasurer’s Office to Invest in the Working Class?
By Peter Lucas
Dustin Granger sees the position as a potential antidote to Republican Governor-elect Jeff Landry, but the progressive candidate still faces an uphill battle in the upcoming November runoff.
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In late September, citizens of Avoyelles Parish, the heart of Louisiana, gathered to hear candidates give their stump speeches mere weeks out from the Saturday, October 14, primary election. Among the batch of elected hopefuls, the majority-white, majority-Republican community listened to Dustin Granger, the progressive Democratic candidate for state treasurer. One Republican in particular, a man wearing a T-shirt with former president Donald Trump’s image splashed across his chest, seemed especially moved by Granger’s calls for progressive economic reform.
“The message is universal. The guy with the Trump shirt was nodding his head the whole time, and another gentleman came up and said, ‘Wow. Keep saying that over and over. You got my vote,’” Granger said.
Granger, a financial adviser from Lake Charles, is one of the three statewide Democratic candidates left standing following a disastrous primary election that resulted in the Democratic Party’s losing the governorship outright and without a runoff—a result few political pundits saw happening. Governor-elect Jeff Landry, a Republican in the same vein as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, will helm Louisiana over the next four years. The Republican-dominated legislature, featuring a multitude of conservative Democrats, will provide plenty of support to Landry during his term.
