Registration
statistics are in
for eligibility to vote on Nov. 4, and early voting has concluded. Do they
tell us whether incumbent Sen. Mary
Landrieu, who has trailed in the last 11 polls heads-up to challenger Rep. Bill Cassidy but who has won three close
elections for the office, could do it again?
Both sides of the Senate contest
claim there’s something good about the registration
numbers.
Republicans point to the fact that their numbers keep growing, although not as
fast as no-party/other-party voters, as Democrats’ totals continue in
free-fall, while Democrats point that among new registrations since July about
half of all new registrants are black, who historically vote overwhelmingly
Democrat. Heading in to the election, as a whole registered voters in Louisiana
proportionally are 63.9 percent white, 31.5 percent black, and 4.6 percent
others, while they are 47.1 percent Democrats, 27.5 percent Republicans, and
25.4 percent no-party/other.
Republicans rightly celebrate
their increases at the expense of Democrats. With 171,000 fewer of the latter
than in 2008, of which
165,000 were white with blacks increasing about 8,000, using a rule of thumb
that two-thirds of all white Democrats voted for the incumbent and now running
for reelection Democrat Landrieu as did all blacks, she has lost a base of
102,000 voters from when she had a winning margin of 121,000 – in an election
that was higher-stimulus for her supporters then than now. Keep in mind also
that registration is not the same as self-identification, and as far as that
what was a 10-point
advantage for Democrats in 2008 is now down to four, among all
voters. Further, 45 percent identify as conservatives, as opposed to just 17
percent liberals. Finally, she appears to have only 25 percent
of the white vote
at present.
Democrats can take some solace
that from within an electorate that overall is two-to-one white-to-black that a
slim majority of new registrants were black – but only a small amount of
solace. It’s one thing to register a voter; it’s another to make him vote, and
as it appears a significant proportion of the new black registrants opted to
choose neither major party, these individuals are much less likely to turn up
at the polls even a couple of months after registration. Any additional bump
they get solely from disproportionately increased registration will add a few
thousand votes at best, and, as far as Nov. 4 is concerned, are very unlikely
to hand her a win in a contest where no heads-up poll with main rival
Republican Cassidy ever has shown her with a majority, and most, particularly
recent ones, show her far below it.
Early voting shows little to
cheer about for Landrieu as well. Given that the dynamics of the contest point
to greater
enthusiasm (by 10 percentage points) with certainty to vote among Republicans
than for Democrats,
these numbers can give some clue as to whether this will play out. Be aware
that interpreting early voting numbers is difficult, for there’s no way of
knowing if totals reflect underlying enthusiasm or just wanting to get voting
over with, where the former tells us about the dynamics of voting behavior that
reflect on and replicate Nov. 4 behavior but the latter only displaces votes
from Nov. 4 and does not serve as a precursor to it.
A potential good sign for
Landrieu could be having a higher proportion of Democrats and blacks turn out
in early voting than their proportions in the registered population. Yet even
as Democrats have a 7:4 advantage over Republicans in registration, they participated
in early voting at only a bit over a 3:2 ratio. Things ended slightly better as
far as the proportion of blacks voting early was slightly higher than the 1:2
ratio with whites. Assuming these serve as a precursor, given the demographic, attitudinal, and polling data, neither candidate seems
to have drawn an advantage here.
Which is bad news for Landrieu.
The trend of opinion polls is going in the wrong direction for her and she needs something to
disrupt that, favorably for her. Both registration and early voting statistics,
complemented by the fact that at her present levels of white support and black
registrations are not enough to get her victory either now or in a runoff, show
nothing of the sort, and, as has been the case for months now, she continues to
be the underdog to Cassidy.
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