After President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Louisiana citizens will officially be under the rule of a Republican-led state and federal government.   

The next four years of Trump in office will have critical implications for Louisianans.  

With an incoming Republican president-elect, U.S. Congress and majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans now control all three branches of the government: executive, legislative and judicial.  

It came as no surprise that the majority – 60.2% – of Louisianans cast their votes for Trump.  What does this mean for Louisiana? 

The economy 

Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to cut taxes, increase tariffs and reduce the prices of goods, although some experts find the latter two goals contradictory.  

 As the second poorest state in the nation, the economy is a major concern in the minds of Louisianans.   

Trump’s plans to scale up the United States’ oil and gas industry, in contrast to Democratic goals to kickstart the renewable energy transition, are attractive on the Gulf Coast. Louisiana’s oil and gas industry provides 13.1% of the state’s total employment and makes up 21% of the state’s gross domestic product.  

“I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump said regarding his vision for the presidency.  

Trump also appointed oil executive and fossil fuel advocate Chris Wright as secretary of energy. 

“We likely will see a transition away from the Biden administration’s focus on green energy,” Tulane University political science professor Brian Brox said. “I suspect that oil and gas producers, the shippers that move that material in and out of the Gulf Coast [and] the refineries around here will see a lot more activity, therefore improving the state’s economy.”  

Trump’s policies will reduce environmental regulations and set back climate change goals, consequently stimulating the growth of the oil and gas sector in Louisiana’s economy.  

“Trump’s presidency is probably a good thing for [the oil and gas sectors] in terms of growing them. In terms of the economic costs of climate change and the lost opportunity to pursue growth in job sectors of the future, those [sectors] will obviously suffer,” political science assistant professor Joshua Basseches said. 

However, Brox believes Trump’s presidency may have a neutral or only slightly positive effect on Louisiana’s economy. 

“Regardless of [Trump’s oil and gas] policy, a four-year presidency is not going to take a state with entrenched poverty and lift everyone out in four years,” he said. “The things that are tough about the state have been tough for a long time.” 

A report released in October by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis highlights the major decline in the petrochemical sector’s importance in the Louisiana economy.  

“In the 1960s, the oil and gas industry accounted for 60% of the state’s total revenues. During the late 1990s, it made up 40%. Today, it provides only 4.5% of state funds,” the report said.   

According to the report’s author, Tom Sanzillo, even a pro-oil presidency won’t significantly change this decline. 

Plans for mass deportations under Trump, aided by military force, may harm the economy by reducing the workforce. 

“When unemployment is high, the economy gets shaky. We get volatility, and we get the potential for a recession,” political science professor Scott Nolan said.  

According to the American Immigration Council, immigrants comprise over 5% of Louisiana’s labor force. 30% of the entire immigration population in the state is undocumented. They comprise 1.8% of the workforce and pay $112 million in state and local taxes.  

“A significant amount of that agricultural work is done by people who are undocumented,” Nolan said. “If you have [fewer] people to work…the costs are going to go up,” Nolan said. 

Education  

Once in office, Trump has pledged to eliminate the U.S Department of Education.   

The DOE holds numerous responsibilities, such as enforcing anti-discrimination and anti-poverty policies, disbursing Federal Student Aid funds, overseeing school performance data and funding K-12 schools.  

“A lot of students at Tulane have academic accommodations for disabilities, and they’ve had those in high school as well. The Department of Education administers all of those civil rights laws,” Basseches said.  

State and local governments are primarily responsible for setting school curricula and enrollment and graduation requirements.  

The elimination of this department would also eliminate the home of the Office of Federal Student Aid.  

While it is unclear how the elimination of the DOE would go into effect, experts say it could lead to the distribution of DOE funds directly to the individual states.  

“I expect the number of people who are going to four-year colleges and universities will dip, and the implication of that is our workforce will be less sophisticated,” Nolan said.  

Hurricane response 

With hurricanes becoming increasingly common in the Gulf South, Trump’s plans for natural disaster response come as a concern to many. 

Trump has recently come under scrutiny for perpetuating false claims about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to Hurricane Helene.   

“Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan.   

However, many believe that Trump would give strong support to Louisiana in the case of a hurricane, especially considering that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise are from Louisiana, in addition to a swath of Trump’s supporters.  

“I think if something were to happen in the Gulf Coast, [Trump] would be on top of it. I suspect that [Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise] would be very much in his ear, suggesting that he needs to direct federal resources should something bad happen to Louisiana,” Brox said.  

“My hunch is that red states will get the help that they need, and blue states will be told to get lost because Trump really doesn’t care about people who don’t give him loyalty,” Nolan said.   

Basseches said that not mitigating climate change will worsen Louisiana’s sea level and coastal erosion problems.  

“Denying climate change and either reversing policies that are intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or not pursuing additional policies will certainly make things worse, not just here in Louisiana, but especially here in Louisiana,” Basseches said.  

Women’s reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights 

Louisiana has upheld strict abortion laws following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which Trump took credit for. The state has also increasingly advanced restrictive LGBTQ+ laws since Gov. Jeff Landry took office in January.  

Louisiana residents have already been feeling the effects of Roe v. Wade being overturned.   

“We’ve had doctors leave the state. Supposedly, you cannot get an abortion […] unless you are almost dead,” political science professor Rosalind Cook said. “Those who can afford it leave the state because of the services that they can get, perhaps in California or Colorado, and poor women don’t have the availability of [traveling for reproductive care]. And I think that’ll become even more pronounced.” 

The pattern of women traveling out of Louisiana to access healthcare may increase with Trump’s presidency as reproductive rights are further curbed.  

“If this movement at the state level were to be accelerated at the national level, I am convinced that there will be a significant number of women and LGBTQ+ folks, individuals and families, [who will] move to different state[s],” Nolan said.  

Nolan said that some students may alter their post-graduation plans based on reproductive legislation.  

“I have had emails from students who said that the number of states where they’re going to apply to law school changed and went down because they don’t want to go to […] school in a state where [they won’t have a choice] if they’re the victim of […] a sex crime,” Nolan said.  

Professor Andrew Ward, an expert on the rise of Christian nationalism in global political systems, believes people across Louisiana will be affected not only by having their rights stripped, but by being newly empowered to voice bigotry out loud.  

“The gloves are off, and people feel they have a mandate to participate in the worst excesses of Trumplicanism,” he said. “Homophobia…transphobia, horrible treatment of migrants, poor people and historically marginalized persons, not just within our state and in our country but around the world.” 

Louisiana is a diverse state that boasts a growing population of people of color, a significant immigrant population and socioeconomic diversity.   

There is also a lot of tension among this diverse population, and this tension can lead to anger and fear among different identity groups. 

“I think a lot of Louisianans now feel they can be completely overt and say and do whatever they want,” Ward said. “And if they want to refer to immigrant[s] [as] scum [and use] filthy words, they will. Some of them already have.” 

The future of progressives in Louisiana  

Democrats still have some power in Louisiana — Rep. Troy Carter represents Louisiana’s 2nd District. Representative-elect Cleo Fields will represent a newly drawn majority-Black district, the 6th District. The state Democratic Caucus has 32 members.  

Ward believes that people who are fearful of the possible outcomes for the Trump presidency should take a page out of the MAGA playbook by forming their own policy organizations like the Council for National Policy and the Heritage Foundation. 

“Christian nationalists have given us a roadmap. We need to do exactly what they did,” he said. “We have to stay organized. We have to stay focused. We can never get tired.” 

When will the Trump effect be felt?  

Nolan believes that the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency are likely to be productive, but that it could take between six months and one year to see tangible change in our local economies.   

“I do not think this country will change overnight the second that Donald Trump becomes president,” Nolan said.   

He anticipates that internal conflicts within the Republican Party may lead to setbacks in Trump administration policies.   

“We think that Republicans are all lockstep on every single issue, and in many ways, they are,” Nolan said. “But when they actually have power, everyone turns into a greedy narcissist and doesn’t want to negotiate.”