LA-04 Runoff, Predictions and Results

[minionofmidas]

There will be pressure to keep a black majority district in the general area, I think. Which may have interesting knock-on effects in neighbouring districts.

If the 2006 census estimates are correct, that district is going to be a real gerrymander - snaking from New Orleans to East Baton Rouge Parish.  I can't think of another way to pick up a large minority population.  Outside of the part of Jefferson Parish that's already in the district, most of the New Orleans suburbs are fairly white.

Lots of rural Blacks along the river. You could probably cut parts of New Orleans out.

[minionofmidas]

Changing the subject, is there any chance Carmouche can still win?  He announced that there are still some provisional ballots left to count, and there will be a recount.

Louisiana uses electronic voting machines, so there's not really anything to recount. I doubt there will even be 350 provisional ballots, let alone enough for Carmouche to come out ahead. Barring some major tabulation error by a poll worker, there's not really any chance of Carmouche winning.

the "looks like Dardenne knows how to do his job" comment right after that came in got me chuckling...

That late holding of Bossier precincts that suddenly gave Fleming the lead I think warrants an examination.  Is there a reason why they waited liek 40 minutes to count those precincts?  Shades of Illinois 1960. 

[minionofmidas]

Changing the subject, is there any chance Carmouche can still win?  He announced that there are still some provisional ballots left to count, and there will be a recount.

Louisiana uses electronic voting machines, so there's not really anything to recount. I doubt there will even be 350 provisional ballots, let alone enough for Carmouche to come out ahead. Barring some major tabulation error by a poll worker, there's not really any chance of Carmouche winning.

That late holding of Bossier precincts that suddenly gave Fleming the lead I think warrants an examination.  Is there a reason why they waited liek 40 minutes to count those precincts?  Shades of Illinois 1960. 

Sorry to break it to you, but Bossier is overwhelmingly Republican.  Fleming did as well as I expected over there.

It suspiciously got about 10 points more Republican after that late vote holding. 

Really?  I remember Bossier being fairly stable throughout the reporting.

In any case, they were probably reporting out of the Shreveport and Bossier City part of the parish when you think his vote total jumped.  I don't know for sure.

Half of Bossier was the last stuff to be reported. Now they may be multiple reasons for that, most of them entirely legit. And the final dump was somewhat more Republican than the first half (again, multiple possible explanations, including the most likely one that's entirely legit) - I don't know if it was ten points, but in this close a race it was the difference between Carmouche by, like, 50 and Fleming by 350.

[minionofmidas]

02 you're talking I suppose?

[minionofmidas]

I don't think any other state (excluding states with 1, 2, or 3 districts) even comes close.

Connecticut had 3 out of 5 flipping, Colorado 3 out of 7, Iowa 2 out of 5. That's probably closest.
And of course LA-5 and LA-6 flipped twice.