WASHINGTON — Louisiana residents may have just elected a new governor, but they’re not done voting yet.
On Saturday, voters will decide runoff elections for secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer and nearly two dozen state legislative seats, with Republicans needing to defeat only the Democratic candidate in one state House district to win their to maintain a supermajority in the chamber.
At the top of the ballot will be the race to replace Republican Kyle Ardoin as secretary of state. The Republican candidate is Nancy Landry, a former three-term state representative who serves as Ardoin’s top deputy. The Democratic candidate is Gwen Collins-Greenup, a Baton Rouge attorney who ran unsuccessfully for the job against Ardoin in 2018 and 2019. They advanced to Saturday’s runoff after each receiving 19% of the Oct. 14 primary, with Landry putting Collins ahead. -Greenup with just under a thousand votes. Landry has no ties to Republican Governor-elect Jeff Landry.
The winner will inherit the job of replacing Louisiana’s outdated electronic, touchscreen voting equipment, which has been panned by both Democrats and Republicans for failing to produce a paper document to assure voters and auditors that election results have been accurately presented. The process of replacing the machines has dragged on for years, with election deniers like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell advocating that the state abandon the use of machines entirely and instead rely on manually counting all ballots across the country. stands.
Landry and Collins-Greenup agree on key election administration issues. At a candidates forum in September, they both opposed manual counting of ballots and supported the introduction of a voting system that provides an auditable paper trail. They agreed that Louisiana’s election is secure and that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president in 2020 over incumbent Donald Trump. They disagreed over extending the state’s early voting period, which is currently set at seven days. Landry says the current system is adequate and expanding it would be too expensive and potentially unfair to candidates. Collins-Greenup says she would support a longer period if the state’s election infrastructure can support it.
Here’s a look at what to expect on election night:
A general election will be held in Louisiana on Saturday. Polls close at 8:00 PM local time (CT), which is 9:00 PM ET.
The Associated Press will report on 29 contested races: secretary of state, attorney general, treasurer, four statewide ballot measures, two regional school board races, two Senate seats and 18 state House seats. All 39 seats in the Senate and 105 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election this year, but most seats were filled during the Oct. 14 primary election.
All registered voters will be allowed to participate in Saturday’s general election.
Although John Bel Edwards won the governorship twice in 2015 and 2019, Louisiana remains a tough state for statewide Democrats. Turning a statewide office blue would entail following Edwards’ electoral blueprint: putting huge numbers in Democratic strongholds, capturing somewhat competitive areas where Republican margins of victory tend to be smaller, and minimizing the damage in heavily Republican regions like central Louisiana minimalize.
Collins-Greenup received 41% in her failed bids for secretary of state in 2018 and 2019, slightly outperforming Hillary Clinton and Biden statewide but unable to significantly expand the map beyond the ten parishes that wore them.
Also working against Democrats is the projected low turnout for this runoff, which tends to drop dramatically from the primaries if there is no gubernatorial primary to lead the vote.
The Associated Press does not make predictions and will only declare a winner if it is certain that there is no scenario that will allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If no race is called, the AP will continue to report on any newsworthy developments, such as concessions to candidates or declarations of victory. The AP will make it clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
There are no automatic recounts in Louisiana, but a candidate can request and pay for a recount of absentee and early votes. The AP can declare a winner in a race subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
As of November 1, there were 2,976,612 voters registered in Louisiana. Of those, 39% were registered Democrats and 34% were registered Republicans.
Turnout for the October gubernatorial election was 1.1 million voters, about 36% of the total number of registered voters. About 47% of registered Republicans and 36% of registered Democrats cast ballots.
Turnout for the 2019 general election was 1.5 million voters, or 51% of registered voters. That election saw a turnout of 55% of registered Democrats and 58% of registered Republicans.
The last time a Louisiana governor was elected in the October primary rather than the November general election was in 2011, when Republican Bobby Jindal was re-elected. That year, turnout went from 33% of total registered voters in the primaries to 23% in the general election. In the 2018 special election for Secretary of State, turnout was 51% in the primaries, coinciding with the midterm elections for Congress, but then dropped to 18% in the runoff.
As of Wednesday, a total of 264,855 voters had cast ballots before Election Day, 47% by Republicans, 39% by Democrats and 15% by members of other parties.
In the 2019 general election, 33% of voters cast their ballots before election day.
As of Monday, the AP estimates turnout between 15% and 18% of registered voters, or about 780,000 votes, based on turnout in previous statewide elections and ballots received so far.
During Louisiana’s Oct. 14 primary, the AP first reported results at 9:03 p.m. ET, or three minutes after polls closed. Election night tabulation ended at 1:02 a.m. ET with 100% of the total votes counted.