NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Organizers of the recall effort for Mayor LaToya Cantrell have a little over a month left to collect 20-thousand signatures.
WGNO spoke with political analysts about the chances the effort will succeed.
“This is most likely the most intense recall effort we’ve seen in the state of Louisiana history,” Jeff Crouere, Political Analyst said.
“They did a lot of signatures in the beginning because that’s when the energy was the highest, but the energy dissipates over time,” Edward Chervenak, Political Scientist at the University of New Orleans said.
The momentum was strong in the beginning with the recall efforts of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, but with five weeks left NOLATOYA.org has received only 30,000 signatures and they need around 54,000.
“That is about a thousand a day that they’ll need in a month or so, so it is actually an uphill climb. They will basically have to double their efforts in the final month of the campaign,” Crouere said.
Crouere went on to say, “She’s still got a lot of hard core supporters who aren’t willing to sign petition.”
Recently recall organizers sent out thousands of petitions by mail to beef up their efforts.
“Mailers are notorious for very low response rates. People who do mail surveys understand this. You only get about five to ten percent of people to respond,” Chervenak said.
Political analysts believe even with another mailing blitz planned, it is still going to be tough.
“They are going to hope that one/fourth of the people who get the petition are going to sign it and send it in,” Crouere said.
“Coming into Mardi Gras people are going to be distracted and I think it will be extremely difficult to meet their goal,” Chervenak said.
But could voter’s frustration with the spike in crime get them to sign the petition?
“I would say probably the odds are they aren’t going to be able to get there because of the massive numbers they need,” Crouere said.
In addition to the 54,000 signatures, political analysts say they would most likely need between 5,000 and 10,000 more signatures because some of them will be tossed out because of errors.