Through the first two days of early voting, almost 176,000 voters have cast ballots; and of those, almost 56,000 of them are Black. That Black turnout amounts to 32% of the total turnout thus far; and John Couvillon, the founder of JMC Analytics and Polling, says while that lines up with the Black population of Louisiana as a whole, that represents a considerably higher Black turnout compared to other recent high-profile non-Presidential elections.
“In 2022, you had 147,000 early voters who were 24% Black; in the governor’s race, you had 118,000 voters who were 25.5% Black,” Couvillon noted.
Couvillon says the increase in Black voter turnout may be the result of lingering anger over the last-minute redistricting that eliminated one of the two majority-Black congressional districts.
“You cannot entirely discount the impact of Callais, just because redistricting is an emotional issue; and it was certainly on display in the session this year when they redrew the districts,” Couvillon explained.
Couvillon says about 30% of all ballots will be cast during early voting, and he does not expect the Election Day returns to yield much of a change from the early voting returns.
“Whatever the partisan and racial spread ends up being at the conclusion of early voting, I’m not expecting some 20 or 30-point difference on election day; it’s more like a few points,” Couvillon said.
As such, Couvillon says if a candidate gets about 55% of the vote during early voting, that should be enough of a margin for that candidate to hold on for the win.