Over the last month we have seen research piece after research piece, polling data papers upon polling data papers, and have heard from political analyst after political analyst when it comes to the Shreveport Mayoral Race. It's been a lot of information, and for most people, it's been hard to keep track of. Especially when you mix in Mayoral Forums, interviews, and political ads.

But as things start to come into focus, there seems to be a few common threads between all of the research. Which is that Shreveport Mayor Ollie Tyler looks like she's positioned to win a second term.

There is a group of five "viable" candidates fighting for the Mayor's seat. Mayor Tyler is up against Republican candidates Jim Taliaferro, Lee O. Savage, and Democrats Steven Jackson and Adrian Perkins.

When some of the first research started to get leaked, most people paying attention pointed at Mayor Tyler's big lead. But at that point, we had only a little research, and it was really hard to come to any conclusions using a small sample size.

As more research began to circulate, rumors of a potential deal between candidates bubbled up. There may have been some meat on those rumor-bones, but apparently one of the involved candidates pulled out of the deal. (Note here, we'll come back to this)

The next batch of info continued a trend, Mayor Ollie Tyler was in the lead in the Mayor's race. But the public never got to see the actual data behind that one, so we didn't get a full picture. We worked to piece together what we could, and it still showed us that Mayor Tyler had a lead, but painted a picture where Adrian Perkins could be a strong player in the race. 

The trend of Adrian Perkins performance was extended as the financial disclosure forms began to make their way into the public eye. Adrian Perkins has outpaced all other candidates in fundraising, including Ollie Tyler. Breaking down the numbers within the reports, it was interesting to see how much of Mayor Tyler's contributions came in from businesses (vendors, lawyers, contractors, ect) vs individuals. Mayor Tyler had more than 50% of her contributions from those companies, while Adrian Perkins raised more from individuals in the city.

Now with the latest research, from MRI, the research shows that Ollie Tyler would defeat both Republican candidates, by a wide margin. The same groups previous research however showed that Adrian Perkins would likely win against Ollie Tyler in a December runoff.

The latest polling research solidified the trends we've been watching for the last couple of months. That trend is that Mayor Ollie Tyler still has a lead in the race for the Mayor's election, and the only candidate that could likely defeat her is Adrian Perkins. Coupled with the financial information, the trend appears to follow a path where Mayor Tyler had a wide margin in September, but Adrian Perkins has closed that gap aggressively over the last 2 months.

Now, it's only research, but what the polling data, research pieces, and financial data shows is that there are only 2 possible winners come December, Mayor Ollie Tyler, or Adrian Perkins.

Let's go back to the part we marked up top, about the pact between two candidates. I wanted to go back to that part for a second. That deal was reportedly between the two Republican candidates, Jim Taliaferro and Lee O. Savage. I bring this up, because there is one possible chance to end the election before the December runoff.

After this morning's new research was released, many insiders started to suggest that both Republicans could back out, endorse Adrian Perkins, and defeat Mayor Ollie Tyler outright in two weeks.

That scenario is extremely unlikely.

At this point, the research shows there would be only one way to defeat Mayor Tyler, and that's Adrian Perkins.

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