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

[ElectionsGuy]

I think he'll get 45-50% in the first round and 50-55% in the runoff.

[ElectionsGuy]

Unfortunately, I'll be working on Saturday night and won't be able to see the first results trickle in. Here's my final prediction for the race, with JBE just barely missing winning threshold. The runoff vs no runoff question is very much a toss-up, though, and relies on how election day voters turnout and vote relative to early voters.

JBE: 49%
Rispone: 26%
Abraham: 21%
Others: 5%

[ElectionsGuy]

Here's my prediction map (non-Atlas colors) of combined Dem vs Rep vote, with the expectation of JBE narrowly getting sucked into a runoff 49% (50-51% with the other Dem) vs combined R vote of 47-48%. Yellow counties are bellwethers. I'm expecting the most R swing in Cajun country, the most D swing in Baton Rouge and New Orleans suburbs, and least amount of swing in NoLA.

[ElectionsGuy]

Intervals: <60%, 60-70%, and 70%+ (non-Atlas colors)

Total Republican: 696,399 (51.8%)
Total Democratic: 636,993 (47.4%)

[ElectionsGuy]

Here are county ratings I made for all three races.



And I should tell you what I'm currently expecting as well so it makes sense...

KY: 52.0-44.5 Bevin (slightly worse margin than last time, but the county swings are going to be ridiculous)

LA: 50.5-49.5 Edwards

MS: 53.5-45.5 Reeves (almost exact margin of MS special senate race. Counties are exactly the same too)

[ElectionsGuy]

if trends are indeed real, shouldn't Beshear be winning Kenton, Campbell & Warren even as he's resoundingly defeated statewide?

No. Trends would suggest they should be good bellwethers (and that's even assuming they catch up to presidential/congressional trends in a Governor race). What you just described is the trends on steroids outcome.

[ElectionsGuy]

Give me a Break! Beshear will win a lot more than just 6 Counties. Jesus.

You should learn from the election of your name. Democrats can win or narrowly lose with very few large counties with large concentrations of vote. I'm bound to be wrong on at least a few counties on that map, but for him to win any more than 10 counties is a far reach even if he's winning or close to winning.

[ElectionsGuy]

Thoughts on this one after what happened today? I’ll stick with Tilt/Lean D JBE +2 for now, but far closer to Tossup than Likely D.

I think if anything the Mississippi race is far better of a comparison in terms of what kind of race this will be than Kentucky's race. More similar electorate and more similar candidates.

[ElectionsGuy]

Those numbers are very troubling to Rispone's chances. Maybe the Republican infighting is going to lower their turnout after all... Or some Democrats just sat on their ass in October.

[ElectionsGuy]

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?

I think what we might be seeing is somewhat significant higher turnout in the runoff than the primary, with Democrats disproportionately being the 'not primary but runoff' voters. But that would still kinda fail to answer the question. What we saw in Mississippi in 2018 (with Espy much improving from his jungle primary performance in the runoff) could be possible here or the early vote is just skewed more Democratic and this could end up being a narrow Rispone win. This race right now is very suspenseful and unpredictable.