Democrats outpace Republicans in early voting ahead of March 29 election
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Louisiana's March elections are typically low-turnout affairs, especially when major races aren't on the ballot. But this year, with four constitutional amendments heavily pushed by Gov. Jeff Landry's administration, early voting trends are drawing attention.
According to pollster John Couvillon with JMC Analytics and Polling, early voting is higher than usual for an election of this nature, though overall turnout is still expected to be low. Couvillon is projecting a 16% turnout, slightly higher than the 14% turnout seen during the last amendment-focused election in 2021.
'That's too large of a group to ignore in terms of its electoral significance. I'm finding that early voting is basically a distant, early warning sign for either party in terms of who has the enthusiasm or who doesn't,' Couvillon said.
One of the most striking findings is that Democrats are heavily out-voting Republicans. While recent years have seen Republicans dominate early voting, this cycle shows Democrats with more than 30,000 more early votes than Republicans. There's also been a significant increase in Black voter turnout.
According to the Secretary of State's website, the total number of early votes is 182,866. Breakdown of those votes:
110,095 from white voters
66,748 from Black voters
62,928 votes from Republicans
93,184 votes from Democrats
26,754 votes from other parties
'Not even during John Bel Edwards's 2019 reelection, when I was seeing strong Democratic numbers, have I seen numbers as strong as they are today,' Couvillon said. 'More specifically, 37% Black and +17% Democratic. I've not seen those kinds of numbers ever.'
What Louisiana voters need to know before March 29 election
Couvillon noted that the increased Democratic turnout may reflect dissatisfaction with the current political landscape.
'Basically, what you have with Donald Trump in the White House and Jeff Landry in the governorship, both of them are pursuing Republican agendas. And the extent to which they're pursuing it, I think, is creating a firestorm of anger amongst Democrats and one thing I've seen when people are angry, they can and do vote,' Couvillon said.
The proposed constitutional amendments include a major overhaul of the state's tax system that would:
Permanently cut income taxes
Double the standard deduction
Potentially reduce funding for early childhood education
Maintain a teacher pay stipend
Include other tax-related changes
..
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