Breitbart: Early voting in the October 12 “jungle primary” between incumbent Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, and two Republican candidates ended on Saturday, and the turnout is massive, particularly among Republicans and Independents.
“As of last night, 374,190 Louisianians either early voted by person or by mail in ballot (340,480 in person, and 33,710 mail in ballots). To put this number in perspective, this is the highest early voting turnout EVER for a non-Presidential election, and is the second highest early voting turnout EVER (only the 2016 Presidential election has seen a higher in person + absentee voting turnout with 531,555 early votes),” Louisiana-based JMC Analytics reported on Sunday:
Why has turnout been so high ? Given that the 374K is 59% higher than the 235K who early voted in the 2015 statewide election cycle, JMC believes that external factors are present. Last year, reports of strong early voting across the country (and, to some extent, energized conservatives after the Kavanaugh hearings) created a 315K turnout in an otherwise sleepy election cycle here.
This time, the thought is that Democrats’ actions towards impeaching President Trump (in a state where he still remains fairly popular) have energized conservative voters: compared to 2015,
“Republican turnout volume is up 84%, while Independent turnout is up 80% and Democratic turnout is up 36%,” JMC concluded (emphasis added by JMC.)
Most recent polls show Edwards just shy of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff election in November, with Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-LA) and businessman Eddie Rispone, both Republicans, battling for the second place spot to qualify for the runoff election ballot.
On Tuesday, President Trump came out swinging in support of both Republicans on the ballot in the Louisiana gubernatorial jungle primary with this tweet:
Republican turnout volume is up 84%, while Independent turnout is up 80% and Democratic turnout is up 36%.
Move along, nothing to see here.
Go Ralph Abraham!
Democratic turnout is up 36%,,
HAHAHA,,,
It is still a big big problem here. Eddie Respone is a Republican challenger to Ralph Abraham and he is running a pretty negative inaccurate campaign. Problem is that it looks like the Republican vote is going to be split and There won’t even be a run off as Edwards will get all the other votes. Very bad news.
Jungle primary? That’s racist!
It would be comical if one of the Republicans wound up with 51% of the vote on the first ballot.