While Saturday’s Louisiana gubernatorial election may have motivated only a little more than one-third of registered voters to turn in ballots, business groups seemed upbeat about the election outcome.
After the Sept. 30-through-Oct. 7 early-voting period, the state Secretary of State’s Office said the turnout at that point was somewhat below what would be considered normal for a primary election that included the governor’s race.
“During our successful week of early voting, nearly 275,000 people voted early in-person,” Joel Watson, the deputy secretary of state for outreach, said in an email to the Louisiana Record just prior to the vote. “While that number is slightly lower than in years past, the number of absentee votes we have seen come in has nearly closed that gap. We expect turnout to be between 42% and 46%.
Pollsters and political analysts have expressed surprise this week when only about 36% of the nearly 3 million registered voters statewide cast ballots, based on unofficial election results. The turnout was the lowest for such a state election in the past decade, according to the Secretary of State’s statistics.
During early voting and as a result of absentee voting on Saturday, 368,954 people cast ballots. That’s below the 386,468 voters who voted absentee and during the early voting period in 2019, the unofficial numbers showed.
Business groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business’ Louisiana chapter found good news in the overall results. The Louisiana NFIB endorsed incumbent Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who won two-thirds of the vote in his race, and also picked winners in 35 out of 39 legislative races that were decided on Saturday.
“(Gubernatorial candidate) Jeff Landry made history joining only three other non-incumbent governors in winning the jungle primary outright,” a Louisiana NFIB news release states. “Fortunately, while serving in Congress, Landry earned a 100% voting record and stood up for small businesses. For the first time in eight years, local job creators will have an ally in the Governor’s Office!”
Likewise, Mike Moncla, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), has said Landry would be a friend of industry and would appoint people to positions who will be helpful to the energy sector.
“We expect … Landry to support tort reform and choose to end Louisiana’s reign as the ‘legal hellhole’ of the United States,” Moncla told the E&E News. “We need to make Louisiana an attractive and profitable place for oil and gas companies to do business.”
Louisiana voters also passed four statewide ballot measures on Saturday’s ballot, including a measure barring the use of private money to fund election operations and a measure designating freedom of worship as a “fundamental right worthy of the highest protection.”
“None of the amendments was controversial in nature, and none generated any organized opposition,” Robert Collins, a professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy at Dillard University, told the Record.
The state’s general election, scheduled for Nov. 18, could see turnout that’s even lower than this month’s vote, according to Collins. Because there will be less of a “coattails effect” from the top of the ballot, he suggested that candidates on the ballot next month will need to communicate through direct mail and have a strong ground game to get supporters to the polls.