LA 2019 Gov Race: Gov John Bel Edwards wins a 2nd term

[Adam Griffin]

Here's Griff's patented Election Day Hysteria Generator!

Have fun

Early reports of [adjective] turnout in [location] suggest [noun] for [party/candidate]

[Adam Griffin]

I had no idea this election was today

[Adam Griffin]

Record high turnout and record Democratic performance in EV have been seen before...only for a loss to occur anyway. For all we know, we may be heading for a 1.8m vote turnout with swarms of Democrats voting early and swarms of Republicans popping up on Election Day. It does look good by all accounts, but let's not forget the insane turnout we've been seeing in post-2016 elections and the possibility that this could just be a really high-turnout race with a severe discrepancy in when each party votes.

[Adam Griffin]

Just to highlight what was mentioned above:

https://twitter.com/WinWithJMC/status/1193908835569819658

[Adam Griffin]

Just to highlight what was mentioned above:

https://twitter.com/WinWithJMC/status/1193908835569819658

Why would GOP voters vote early in the primary but not in the run-off?   Or the reverse for the Democrats?

The historical trend here I imagine is rooted in the fact that EV in LA generally lags the country in terms of adoption: only 28% of voters cast an early ballot in the 2019 primary (a majority of the country voted early in both 2016 & 2018 as I recall). I'm not even sure if AIP voting has been available for more than a few years.

LA's unique system also de facto means that we're talking about a primary versus a general election here (as opposed to one distinct primary and one distinct GE in most other states, or in the case of a state like GA, a primary, a general election and a general election runoff).

Since the election occurs on a Saturday, fewer younger and/or non-whites are obligated to vote early. Likewise, the EV has historically been disproportionately ABM, which likewise has tended to skew older and whiter pretty much everywhere (LA or otherwise).

There's presumably less pushing of likely Democrats to vote in the primary due to a greater share being low-propensity; if you can only get them to turn out once, then obviously you want that to happen in a runoff/LA-style general election (though admittedly 2019 may not have been such a situation, since JBE hitting 50 was a goal/possibility in October).

At any rate, I'm deferring to JMC's understanding of how these skewings work simply because I haven't kept track of how much more D/R the vote gets on ED in LA with each cycle. But generally and as of late, a huge surge in Democratic EV means a better performance for the GOP on ED via cannibalization and/or much higher turnout than expected.

[Adam Griffin]

Just to highlight what was mentioned above:

https://twitter.com/WinWithJMC/status/1193908835569819658

Why would GOP voters vote early in the primary but not in the run-off?   Or the reverse for the Democrats?

The historical trend here I imagine is rooted in the fact that EV in LA generally lags the country in terms of adoption: only 28% of voters cast an early ballot in the 2019 primary (a majority of the country voted early in both 2016 & 2018 as I recall). I'm not even sure if AIP voting has been available for more than a few years.

LA's unique system also de facto means that we're talking about a primary versus a general election here (as opposed to one distinct primary and one distinct GE in most other states, or in the case of a state like GA, a primary, a general election and a general election runoff).

Since the election occurs on a Saturday, fewer younger and/or non-whites are obligated to vote early. Likewise, the EV has historically been disproportionately ABM, which likewise has tended to skew older and whiter pretty much everywhere (LA or otherwise).

There's presumably less pushing of likely Democrats to vote in the primary due to a greater share being low-propensity; if you can only get them to turn out once, then obviously you want that to happen in a runoff/LA-style general election (though admittedly 2019 may not have been such a situation, since JBE hitting 50 was a goal/possibility in October).

At any rate, I'm deferring to JMC's understanding of how these skewings work simply because I haven't kept track of how much more D/R the vote gets on ED in LA with each cycle. But generally and as of late, a huge surge in Democratic EV means a better performance for the GOP on ED via cannibalization and/or much higher turnout than expected.

Doesn't this go against the idea that the early vote is more Democratic in the run-off than in the primary?   I can understand why the primary would have greater a greater proportion of its  turnout be GOP than the run-off due to greater DEM participation in the latter, but I don't see why that would be true of the early vote more than for the election day vote.

Honestly I may have just confused myself along the way with the back-and-forth discussion of EV/ED & primary/general-runoff comparisons, but...if I'm reading everything correctly, some of my underlying assumption there was:

1) because younger and non-white voters are less likely to be intently following (or even participate in) a primary, they're less likely overall to vote - especially early; for a sizable segment who do end up participating, it's going to be more as a result of last-minute awareness that forces them to vote on Election Day (lower turnout contests in general tend to have smaller shares of the electorate casting ballots early). Because ED voting is on a Saturday, this doesn't lead to a catastrophic collapse in black turnout overall in the primary like it would in places that vote on weekdays.

2) because there's greater awareness in most cases involving a general/runoff than a primary, lower-propensity groups are going to be more aware as a whole. Combined with presumably stronger GOTV, standard Democratic voting behaviors become stronger and a greater share end up voting early in the general/runoff.

[Adam Griffin]

Per usual:

Here's Griff's patented Election Day Hysteria Generator!

Have fun

Early reports of [adjective] turnout in [location] suggest [noun] for [party/candidate]