It’s Also Primary Day In Louisiana
In Louisiana, today isn’t just the general election: It’s also the primary. Unlike the other 49 states, Louisiana holds open primaries on Election Day for all its local, state and congressional races, meaning all candidates in a given race appear together on the ballot, regardless of party, and voters select their top choice from the full suite of candidates. A candidate, however, must receive at least 50 percent of the vote to win; if there’s no such winner in a race, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will face each other in a runoff general election, which this year would take place on Dec. 10.
Why doesn’t Louisiana hold open primaries earlier and instead make national election day its run-off date? Well, it used to. This current system was first introduced in the 1970s, with the open primary date occurring in October. However, in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that Louisiana’s setup violated federal protocol, as over 80 percent of races were being decided in the open primary, a full month or so before the rest of the country. The state subsequently revised the protocol with a later run-off date in December.
This system is unique, to say the least, and also controversial. Critics say it helps uplift fringe candidates who finish in second place by large margins in the primaries, while others say turnout suffers when voters have to visit the polls twice within a couple of weeks. Between 2008 and 2010, legal challenges forced the system to be put on pause. There have since been other efforts to amend Louisiana’s voting structure in the years since, but nothing has panned out.
This year, while there are some crowded races on the ballots tonight, our forecast shows that most frontrunner candidates have very likely chances of winning tonight: In four of the six House seats, the top contender has at least a 99-in-100 chance of winning. The other two also show strong prospects: Republican incumbents Clay Higgins in the 3rd District and Julia Letlow in the 5th District have an 88 percent and 92 percent chance of winning, respectively. For the Senate race, incumbent GOP Sen. John Kennedy (not related to those Kennedys) similarly has a 93-in-100 chance of winning. Still, Higgins, Letlow and Kennedy are all running against at least four other candidates, including other Republicans, so the possibility of a run-off come December could still be looming.