The latest early voting numbers could spell trouble for Democrats.
Early voting ended last week and is often an indicator of voter enthusiasm. Whoever shows up to vote two weeks before an election can predict who will show up to vote on Election Day in the weeks.
With this year’s election falling on an LSU gameday, voter turnout is expected to be even lower than usual. This makes early voting data crucial in showing which side is most excited to vote for their respective candidate.
Early voting stats tell us the race, sex, political party and parish where the voter is from. But early voting statistics can’t tell the age or actual vote cast. We have to wait until election day to find out.
The Democratic path to victory is often dubbed the “30-30 rule:” 30 percent African-American voters plus 30 percent of the white vote.
The last election where voters elected a statewide Democrat was 2008, when Mary Landrieu was re-elected to the Senate.
According to 2008 exit polls, Landrieu won 33 percent of white voters and won re-election. In last year’s midterm election, Landrieu struggled to capture the white vote, only winning with 18 percent of white voters.
The white vote doomed Landrieu’s re-election chances last year, and it should worry Democrats this year, too.
Early voting already skewed more white and Republicans than in past years. In 2008, there were 292,213 early votes. Thirty-five percent of those who early voted were African-American, and 57.7 percent were Democrats.
The contrast could not be starker to this year, where 222,164 people early voted: 26.7 percent were African-American, and 50.3 percent were Democrats.
But Democrats have a reason to hope for this gubernatorial race: State Rep. John Bel Edwards, D-Amite, may capture the percentage of the white vote he needs to win.
In a hypothetical, and most likely runoff, scenario, an Advocate-WWLTV poll had Edwards at 45 percent, four points ahead of U.S. Sen. David Vitter’s, R-La., 41 percent. This lead is still within the margin of error though.
And Edwards was polling at 32 percent support among white voters, but this year’s low African-American early voting turnout illustrates how crucial the white vote will be in the gubernatorial election.
Edwards needs to energize more black voters or hold his percentage of white voters in the runoff if he wants to be the next governor. Twenty-six to 28 percent black turnout isn’t enough to cross the finish line victorious, as the white vote is likely to peel off once he is tied to President Obama, a figure deeply unpopular with white voters in Louisiana.
Edwards may have the white votes he needs for now, but his Republican opponents have largely laid off bashing him — probably because Vitter views him as his easiest opponent. Edwards has a tightrope to walk in order to piece together the coalition to be Louisiana’s next governor because the numbers sure as hell aren’t there yet.
Michael Beyer is a 21-year-old political science senior from New Orleans. You can reach him on Twitter @michbeyer.