Jeremy Alford:Turnout will define primary election

Despite an early voting process that underperformed, state election officials are standing by a primary turnout prediction of somewhere between 42% and 46%. 
Joel Watson, the deputy secretary of state for outreach, acknowledged fewer people voted in person last week than during the 2022 early voting period.
“But it was only slightly lower,” Watson added.
However, when compared to the last gubernatorial early voting period, in 2019, there was an 8% drop in participation, according to John Couvillon of JMC Analytics and Polling. 
That’s why Couvillon, along with other politicos, believe turnout for Saturday’s primary election cycle could land somewhere between 38% and 40%.
“I don’t think voters are really engaged,” Couvillon said in an interview last week with www.LaPoliticsWeekly.com. 
Couvillon said he could see the trends clearly in his polling, from the large portion of the undecided vote to how long it was taking his team to collect a sample.
Dr. Edward E. Chervenak, director of the Survey Research Center at the University of New Orleans, said the early vote “provided circumstantial evidence for the lack of enthusiasm in this election.” 
Yet some corners of the electorate are exhibiting a “degree of enthusiasm,” he said, particularly White and Republican voters. 
“The higher turnout rates for Republicans in early voting is somewhat surprising,” said Chervenak. “Former President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters have been highly critical of early voting and absentee voting. Their take on the process is that it is fraught with manipulation and fraud and should not be trusted.
"Republicans in Louisiana appear to have a different take. In fact, they have embraced early voting, and it seems to be working out well for them.
:Republicans are showing up for early voting to a greater extent than their political competition and giving their candidates the edge in elections.”
Chervenak found that even though Republicans comprise 33.8% of registered voters in Louisiana, they somehow comprised 44.8% of this year’s early vote.
“That’s an advantage of 11%, the largest in all the voter categories,” said Chervenak. “The advantage for Democrats is much smaller. They are 38.7% of registered voters and they comprised 40.3% of early voters, leading to a 1.6% advantage.”
Using the same formula, the most disadvantaged group of early voters are Independents and third-party voters. They comprise 27.5% of the registration rolls but are only 14.9% of the early vote — a gap of 12.6%.
That’s why consultant Michael Wong of W Strategies Group declared Republicans as the big winners from early voting.
Last year was the first year Republicans outperformed Democrats in Louisiana early voting, a process that seemed to peak during the COVID-19 pandemic. Operatives like Wong wondered if Republicans could continue to gain during the 2023 early voting process. 
“Republicans took the early vote lead on day two, and didn’t really looked back,” Wong said in last week’s issue of www.LaPoliticsWeekly.com.
“The Republican vote spread just kept growing. Turnout looks like it’s going to be fairly low statewide, which likely means more chronic voters and less persuadable swing voters making up the electorate.”
For political purists, the early voting numbers don’t provide much confidence ahead of Election Day, which is, after all, held regularly to attract voters. Even when turnout is high in Louisiana, the share of the electorate that participates is well below the population figures our elected officials represent.
Outgoing Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has battled low turnout during his time in office and fought back with techniques both sophisticated (like enhancements to the GeauxVote! portal) and not (handing out really cool stickers for voting).
There’s not much to be done, though, when voters aren’t enthusiastic about the candidates on the ballot or the issues being discussed. There simply aren’t enough stickers in the world to fix that problem.
For more Louisiana political news, visit www. LaPolitics.com or follow Alford on Twitter @ LaPoliticsNow.