It’s madness to try to figure out election day results from early voting in Louisiana, but the best that can be derived is that Democrats won’t be as far behind as Republicans in the bellwether Senate race as has become typical.
Coming to this conclusion starts from a rough foundation. Early voting ended earlier this week, with final relevant numbers of whites casting 321,333 ballots to blacks logging 180,219, and Democrats having 222,806 voters to Republicans’ 206,278. As reference there were 1,854,793 white and 933,052 black voters registered, with 1,060,252 Democrats and 1,067,827 Republicans.
These results should start from the baseline of the last non-presidential election that featured a Senate race, 2022. Note, however, two important changes occurred between these dates. First, whereas then all elections on the ballot came as part of a general election under a blanket primary system, this time a few, most principally the presumed biggest draw the Senate contest, will feature the general election without possibility of runoff.
As closed primaries to get to this point encouraged voters to align properly their party registration with their preferred party, the resulting figures give more faithful evidence to presumed votes for their party’s respective candidates. Put another way, a larger proportion of Democrats who voted early in 2022 ended up crossing over to vote for Republicans than will happen in 2026 (and vice versa, but that proportion would be much smaller).
Also worth noting the initial starting points, i.e. party registrants, will change in part because of the institution of closed primaries that had the impact of decreasing contrary sorting to party. As Republicans surpassed Democrats (barely) by the 2026 election, this magnifies any percentage change by Democrats while reducing that of Republicans.
Comparing these then to 2022 figures for the same month of October and early voting for that November election, back then 267,776 whites and 98,008 blacks voted early, among the 159,386 Democrats and 161,817 Republicans who voted before election day. At the time, registered were 1,894,399 whites and 940,512 blacks, among them 1,189,537 Democrats and 1,005,407 Republicans.
This means that, considering the parties, for early voting the total proportion of their electorate who voted were for Democrats 21.04 percent and Republicans 19.32 percent this year, contrasted with respective numbers in 2022 of 13.40 percent and 16.09 percent. So, participating by Democrats shot up over five-eighths from previous participation, while for Republicans it increased by a fifth.
Thus, coming to the question of how much Democrat turnout of 46 percent and Republican turnout of 58.69 percent in 2022 would increase in 2026. This is vital to understanding Democrats’ chances, because their election chances would improve only by increasing turnout among their partisans, recognizing they have about 129,000 fewer and Republicans about 62,000 more.
For the purposes of this analysis, other and no party voters essentially are insignificant, as their numbers climbed only around 34,000 or 4 percent but, in any event, probably are composed of roughly the same proportions of partisan choices as four years, even as their early voting participation climbed from just under 7 percent to just over 11 percent, or roughly about two-thirds.
Yet noting their contribution is helpful to resolving the vexing question of how prominent are the substitution and additive effects evidenced by early voting numbers. That is, how much of the differences noted are, compared to the past, attributable to increased turnout and differentially so, and how much comes from voters merely advancing their trip to the ballot box that would have occurred on election day in any event.
The data are such that a good chunk of these voters cannot be newly activated voters not registered or willing to vote in 2022. After all, increasing turnout for each partisan group by the early voting gains assuming all were new voters would ring up turnout rates of nearly 75 percent for Democrats, over 70 percent for Republicans, and (given turnout of about a third in 2022) 55 percent for all others, clearly nonsensical figures never remotely approached in a midterm election.
And as another piece of evidence suggesting that 2026 turnout won’t exceed much past that of 2022 which rests on the theory that Democrats, and black Democrats in particular, disproportionately will turn out because of aggrievement with Republican rule in Washington and for blacks particularly over reapportionment that yanked their privilege in having districts drawn to facilitate election of blacks to Congress – is that voting rolls for Democrats are down sharply from 2022, including for blacks, whose numbers fell by over 7,000 in this period. Supposedly, if enthusiasm against Republicans was so keen, even as overall Democrat numbers dropped hastened by sorting caused by the institution of closed primaries, black numbers should have risen (indeed, among Democrats black numbers fell by four percent) when compared to a 2022 election where none of the congressional contests were competitive. (Total white registrant numbers were lower as well, about two percent, belying a narrative that great discontent was driving people to the polls in favor of Democrats.)
This tells us much of the increase seen comes from a substitution effect. Differential turnout gains will come as a result of Democrats trying harder to bank their votes prior to election day but aren’t much of a sign they will add new voters. Keep in mind as well that Republicans tend to be more likely to vote for their candidates on election day; in 2022, incumbent winner Republican Sen. John Kennedy picked up around 26 percent of his winning total through early voting, whereas the rest of the field (containing just one minor Republican who received relatively few votes) got about 27 percent of theirs that way.
In short, early voting numbers indicate Democrats will make up ground in this Senate contest compared to the last few as they will narrow the turnout gap from 2022, but that won’t be enough to score a titanic upset. And with new House districts drawn as they are, none will be competitive between the parties. All that the presumed enthusiasm gap will net for the party is potentially swinging close local races in their favor.
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