Early voting shows GOP might have good LA success

It may not be enough to accurately foretell next Saturday’s vote, but Republicans must be encouraged seeing what is coming out concerning early voting in at least one parish.

Caddo Parish reported almost half of its early voters were Republicans. Compared to statewide metrics, this is significantly disproportionately in the GOP’s favor. For the Oct. 20 election, with 24.6 percent of the state’s electorate registered Republican in time for it, 36.1 percent of the early votes cast were by Republicans, and 28.9 percent of the all votes were cast by those registered with the GOP label.

In ratio terms, this means the proportion of Republicans voting early was 46.7 percent greater than their actual proportion registered, and their actual total turnout was 80.1 percent of their early voting turnout. But translating the Caddo figures of this time to a projected proportion of a few days into the future, the percentage shoots up to 40 percent of the actual turnout being Republicans.

A comparison to actual past returns lends confidence to this estimate. Those numbers are close to the Jefferson Parish figures of Oct. 20. Caddo now is 26.5 percent Republican, with a 49.8 percent Republican early vote proportion, translating to 40 percent on Nov. 17, is close to the Jefferson figures then of 29.7 percent Republican, 50.1 percent Republican proportion of early voting, that became a 40 percent Republican proportion of the Oct. 20 electorate in that parish.

This is good news for GOP candidate for atty. gen. Royal Alexander, who ran a little behind his Democrat general election runoff opponent and barely ahead of the incumbent Democrat. Not leading the primary and with a lot of Democrat votes means he needs disproportionate Republican turnout on Saturday. Better for him, almost all down-ballot runoffs are in the places where significant numbers of voters lie in which he did well in the primary. For example, the Senate District 37 race straddles Caddo and Bossier Parishes where he lead his opponent by over 11,000 votes, and wining Bossier outright.

Looking specifically at that Senate race, the news also is good for former State Rep. B.L. “Buddy” Shaw. While the Republican faces another Republican in State Rep. Billy Montgomery, it is widely known that Montgomery is a recent switcher from the Democrats and that the vast majority of Republican votes likely are to go Shaw’s way. Even as Republican candidates including Shaw got 54 percent of the primary vote, it looks likely that Montgomery will spend more money, perhaps a half-million dollars, than any other legislative candidate in the state to try to win this seat, while Shaw is not likely to even hit six figures in his spending.

It’s only the result of one parish, but if it mirrors the remainder of the state, the GOP may have a good enough night that could produce a statewide win, three of four Senate seat wins, and enough House seat wins to take over that chamber.