Voters turned out in droves during the first two days of early voting in Louisiana.
The secretary of state’s office says 171,369 people showed up at the polls Friday and Saturday — and that’s just for the people who cast ballots in person at polling sites.
“You do have to include the mail-in balloting, which brings the early voting total to 259,512 statewide,” says John Couvillon, president and founder of JMC Analytics and Polling.
Normally, more Democrats turn out for early voting than Republicans, but Couvillon says that’s not the case this time around.
“This is the first time ever in a presidential election that Republicans have led in early voting,” says Couvillon. “In 2020 after two days, Democrats had a 19 percentage point lead. As of Saturday night, Republicans had a four-point lead. So in other words, we’re talking about a 23-point swing between 2020 and 2024.”
The Black vote is also considerably down this year.
Couvillon says whereas in 2020, the early voting electorate was 34% Black over the first two days; this year, it’s 26% Black as of Saturday night.
“In absolute terms, you have 21,000 less Black early voters in day two than what you had in 2020,” says Couvillon.
A couple reasons for the huge Republican turnout, according to Couvillon, are that they’re enthusiastic about this year’s election, and the fact that since Louisiana doesn’t have a single competitive race on the ballot in terms of federal offices, people wanted to get their voting out of the way early.
Comments