The uptick
in early voting by Republicans nationally matters even in Louisiana, where
Republican former Pres. Donald Trump
should win handily.
Reflecting
the trend nationally, more Republicans voted in Louisiana during the early
voting period (plus absentee ballots received through its end) with overall
turnout number a bit down from 2020, where voting outside of election day was
encouraged in light of the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. In 2020,
over 986,000 registrants had voted a week prior to the election, of which
almost 436,000 were Democrats and almost 368,000 were Republicans, while this
year turnout was off to over 961,000 or a drop of about 2.5 percent, of
which almost 345,000 were Democrats and nearly 431,000 were Republicans.
The near-reversal in these figures might send some
uncomfortable signals to Democrats. With early voting, it’s never known until
after the fact whether it reflects fairly faithfully the proportions of the
electorate that turn out on election day or if some kind of substitution effect
is occurring where for one demographic group as compared to another its members
who would have voted on election day instead turn out early, or delay turning
out, with the overall proportions when all votes are counted following historical
norms.
But there’s reason to believe the higher GOP trend
presages something like the same on election day, in that it is occurring broadly
coast to coast. That also for Louisiana specifically weakens the notion that
the partisan difference is as a result of party-switching from Democrat to
Republican that has been a steady feature in Louisiana for decades, as back in 2020
there were about 124,000 more Democrats and around 87,000 fewer Republicans
than seen in 2024.
Indeed, the drop in early voting number is barely more proportionally than the
drop in the overall electorate, down around 72,000 as a result of population
losses accelerating in the second term of Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Another sign that it’s likely more trend and less substitution
is turnout by race. 49,000 fewer blacks showed up as opposed to 28,000 more
whites. Typically, blacks have been more likely to vote early.
If in fact these numbers denote disproportionate Republican
turnout – they were 25 percent higher than Democrat numbers in an overall electorate
where Democrats are 8.5 percent higher – and we reasonably can expect few will
defect from GOP candidates (indeed, Democrats will have a higher defection rate
because the blanket primary system doesn’t penalize, at least until 2026, keeping
the same registration even if years ago someone began voting consistently for
the other major party candidates, as a greater proportion of Democrats have
done), this should impact the two major contests on the ballot this fall parts
of the state: the Public Service Commission District 2 and East Baton Rouge Parish
mayor-president contests.
The fantasy for this fall among Democrats at least
to slow the long and steady decline in election victories in the state is for
the EBR chief executive’s office to be retained by the party, either in the
form of incumbent Sharon
Weston Broome or by former state Rep. Ted
James, and to pull off a major upset in the PSC race by having rookie Nick Laborde somehow defeat GOP state Sen. Jean-Paul Coussan and Republican former
state Sen. Julie Quinn. These
results bank upon turnout in a fashion that eliminates Republican educator Sid Edwards, the GOP frontrunner, in the
EBR contest and puts Laborde into the PSC runoff, and then for the runoff
internecine battling in EBR, a major component of District 2, stimulates
Democrats into turning out while Republicans sit it out disproportionately and
somehow this resonates to vault Laborde past a Republican.
It's quite the dream, but the early voting statistics
threaten to turn it into a nightmare. If Republicans turn out
disproportionately, Edwards likely would make a runoff against Broome or James
with a real chance of winning in December. And the same dynamic might mean even
as the default Democrat in the PSC race, Laborde gets aced out by both Republicans,
and that internecine battle spills over into helping Edwards win.
The numbers in key parishes show this may happen.
Most of EBR lies in District 2, and other large parishes in it are Lafayette, Lafourche,
and Terrebonne. In 2020, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans in early voting was
1.6 in EBR, 0.9 in Lafayette, 0.7 in Lafourche, and 0.6 in Terrebonne. In 2024,
they were, respectively, 1.2, 0.5, 0.4, and 0.4. In EBR, about a thousand fewer
whites showed up early, but about 4,000 fewer blacks did as well.
If replicated on Nov. 5, Democrats certainly will
find themselves continuing to look in from the outside for the PSC seat but
also in big trouble in holding on to the EBR top spot. In a few days, we’ll
know whether the early voting results were this canary in a coal mine.