Pollster: Holden’s support shrinking among whites

Support for Mayor Kip Holden’s re-election among whites has fallen to only about 29% of likely voters, says pollster Bernie Pinsonat, who addressed the Baton Rouge Press Club this afternoon. Holden’s approval rating among whites at times has been as high as 60% or better, Pinsonat says. “Crime is absolutely wearing him out,” he says. Pinsonat stopped short of predicting that Holden will lose the election, remarking only that the race is closer than many observers might have predicted several months ago. Holden still polls better than the “very unpopular” Metro Council at large, although Pinsonat notes people may be happier with their own representative than with the council as a whole. The parish is becoming “a lot more fractionalized,” he says, as shown by deep divisions over issues such as the downtown library, the transit tax and breakaway school districts. The “downtown crowd” is unpopular with a large segment of the parish population, while some people who live in the city of Baton Rouge “couldn’t find Central with a GPS and hound dogs,” Pinsonat says. —David Jacobs