The early vote in Louisiana was larger for the runoff election than for the primary in October. In fact, it was the largest EV turnout ever for a non-presidential race in the history of Louisiana elections. African Americans, a critical part of any successful Deep South Democratic coalition, comprised 31% of the EV electorate, which is much better than African American turnout was for the primary, where Governor Edwards garnered about 47 percent of the overall vote. Part of the weakness in the overall vote in the primary was due to poor African American turnout (only 27 percent in the primary), and last week’s elections in Mississippi showed the importance of the black vote to the Deep Southern Democrats.

Another prerequisite for an Edwards victory is strong turnout in the suburbs. In particular, watch for some of the suburbs around New Orleans, Shreveport, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge. If John Bel Edwards is running up the score in those cities and their suburbs, and holding down his losses elsewhere to less than 2 to 1, the Governor is on track to win. Specifically, keep an eye on the parishes north of Lake Pontchartain, St. Tammany Parish among them, to see if Edwards is keeping his margins from getting too low.

Finally, given the high EV turnout, we anticipate a general voter universe that is much larger than that of the primary. Historically, primary electorates and run-off electorates vary from each other by about 20 percent, which strongly implies it would be a mistake to model turnout solely off of the October Primary. We could very well see a general turnout surge like we saw in Kentucky, particularly with Trump’s nationalization of the race into another referendum on his presidency. This extra turnout could swing both ways, but it is definitely helpful that Edwards has banked at least some of his spare turnout based on the high EV turnout.