Despite the months of vote-courting, door-knocking and ad-buying leading up to today’s midterm election, Louisiana’s nationally recognized U.S. Senate race is expected to yield few surprises before the Dec. 6 runoff.
Today’s Senate race is a nonpartisan blanket primary, also known as jungle primary, mandating that all candidates run at once for the same office on Election Day. If no candidate secures more than 50 percent of the vote, the two top candidates advance to a runoff regardless of political party.
University political science professor James Garand predicted there would be no outright winner after polls close tonight and said Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s campaign could be on the decline if it does not beat Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy in primary voter turnout.
“If Cassidy wins but doesn’t win outright tomorrow, that’s a pretty strong signal to Landrieu that she’s in deep, deep trouble,” Garand said.
Cassidy and Landrieu are facing off against Republican Robert Maness, a former Air Force colonel expected to steal conservative votes from Cassidy in the primary.
Real Clear Politics’ average of six recent polls shows Landrieu outpacing Cassidy and Maness in the primary, with Landrieu gaining about 40 percent of the vote to Cassidy’s roughly 34 percent and Maness’ roughly 11 percent.
In a hypothetical runoff between Cassidy and Landrieu, Cassidy defeats the incumbent with about 48 percent of the vote to Landrieu’s 44 percent, according the Real Clear Politics’ average.
Garand said Landrieu would face even greater complications if midterm election results across the country yield a Republican overtake of the Senate.
“If the Republicans take control of the Senate [tonight], at that point this race is probably going to be a less visible race nationally because the control of the Senate will have already been determined,” Garand said. “If the Republicans have 52 votes in the Senate after the election tomorrow night, it’s going to be very hard for Landrieu to motivate her voters to get to the polls, in my opinion.”
Garand said Landrieu could stay alive in the runoff if Cassidy does not gain the momentum of a potentially Republican Senate and campaign funds keep flowing into the state.
“It becomes possible, I’m not saying likely, but it becomes possible that with that kind of the money in the race that Landrieu would be able to motivate her voters to turn out so that she would still have some chance,” Garand said. “I think Cassidy would be favored, but it would to be an impossible dream sort of thing.”
Noah Ballard, mass communication sophomore, stressed the importance of tonight’s results for the Landrieu campaign but said voters should not underestimate the strength of Democrats’ get-out-the-vote effort. Ballard has volunteered for Landrieu’s campaign on and off since February.
About 53 percent of early voters in the Louisiana midterm elections were Democrats compared to the 34 percent of early voters who were registered Republicans, according to data from the Louisiana Secretary of State’s
office.
“I would say that that’s really her only chance at winning,” Ballard said of today’s election. “If she can’t do that, she’s obviously not going to win in the runoff just because of turnout.”