Louisiana Gubernatorial Primary - 20 October 2007

[jimrtex]

This means, going into the November 6 races with Kentucky and Mississippi, the Democrats hold a 27-23 advantage in governor's mansions including the Louisiana flip.  However, Kentucky will probably flip while Mississippi stays GOP, bringing the Democrats back to a 28-22 advantage.  It will probably end up being 1-for-1 deal.  You give me Louisiana and I'll give you Kentucky.  Sounds like a Monopoly game of the states or something.

Mississippi and Louisana must be the two dark purple properties just after you pass GO.

[jimrtex]

You know who your mother's fourth cousin's husband is!?

My mother's grandfather and grandmother were 2nd cousins.  This makes my mother her own 4th cousin, and her husband, my father.

[jimrtex]

When are Louisiana state legislative elections held, BTW? 

The Republicans appear to have a longshot at the Louisiana House of Representatives.  Before the election it appeared to be 43-61-1.  So far, where a representative was elected, or where both runoff candidates are from the same party, it is 42-45-1, with 4 D-to-R switches, and 2 R-to-D switches.

In the 17 remaining inter-party contests, 14 seats are currently held by Democrats.  In RD 55 in Lafourche Parish, an independent received 41% of the vote to two Democrats with 25%.  

In 7 other districts, the Republican candidate came in first, but multiple Democrat candidates shared a majority of the vote.  Some of these districts may be cases where the Democrats are strong enough to treat the election as a Democratic primary with the single Republican candidate strong enough to make the runoff.  But at least some of those who voted for losing Democrats could switch to the Republican leader, or stay home.  Someone whose goal is to simply finish first among the Democrats, and then cruise to victory based on party line voting, may say something that is not forgotten or forgiven.

In 3 other districts, multiple Republican candidates received a majority of the vote, but the Democrat candidate came in first.  These are probably the mostly likely cases for pickups.

And in only 3 districts did the Democrat finish first, and the Democratic candidates received a majority of the vote.

There are only 3 currently GOP-held districts where there is an inter-party runoff.  In one, the Republican narrowly missed a majority (49%), and the GOP vote was 70%.

In the other two, the GOP candidate came first, but there was a majority for the Democrats.

[jimrtex]

So I take it there are no intra-party contests where the incumbent party's candidate neither came in first yesterday nor had his or her party receive a majority of the district's vote.  That would be the case most likely to result in a pickup where a intra-party contest still exists.  Still, I agree with your analysis of what in general are the most likely cases for pickups among those cases that exist this year.

I take it you meant inter-party rather than intra-party.

You are correct, with the exception of the one contest betwen an independent and a Democrat.  That is a Democrat seat, where the two Democrats polled 49.7%, and the Independent and a Republican together had 50.3%.  Incidentally there is a 2-vote separation for 2nd place between the two Democrats 3369 to 3367.

The splits on Democrat held seats, where the GOP candidate finished first, but the Dems had a majority wereL

44 (2 GOP):57 (3 Dems);  35:65(3); 31:69(3); 41:59(2); 31:69(3); 30:71(3); 29:69(5)

So these are longshots unless a losing Democrat endorses the Republican, and convinces his supporters to follow, or a lot of his supporters stay home.

Where the GOP had a majority, but the Democrat finished first:

60 (2):41(1); 51(2):49(1); 55(3):32(2):I(14)

I'd count the 1st and 3rd as pretty sure GOP pickups.

So let's assume the GOP gets lucky in one other RD, and picks up all 3 here, and the Independent wins; that would make it GOP 49; Dem 54; Ind 2.