The LA Democrat party leadership has been a lethal mix of inept and corrupt for a while now. I would argue John bel Edwards won in spite of rather than due to their assistance. There is a rumor floating around (not confirmed) that they hosted a fairly large fundraiser for Shawn Wilson (ostensibly to funnel whatever they raised into his ongoing gov campaign) and then just pocketed the money. Given that the former dem party chair Karen Carter Peterson just got sentenced to 22 months in fed prison (on the day of the primary no less) for helping herself to campaign money, that seems more plausible a story than it might otherwise. Seriously, who is going to throw their hat in the ring for ANY statewide office if that’s the kind of support you can expect for your flagship candidate? And then you get to get your veto overridden by a repub supermajority ? Nah, way less stress to just stay in a lobbying job somewhere. Say what you want about Karl Rove and co, but the state level elections were where he and his cohort of repub strategists focused quite a bit of effort grooming candidates since the late 90s and it has continued to pay dividends for them.