Black Voters Turn Out Early In Louisiana

JMC Analytics notes that early voting in the Louisiana governor’s race, which ended last night, was the highest ever for a non-presidential election.

Key takeaway: “Whatever the turnout levels are from election cycle to election cycle, black voters (who are almost unanimously Democratic) tend to show up in greater numbers on the last day. But very rarely do they turn out to the extent that they did yesterday: a whopping 40% of the last day early voters were black (blacks represent 31% of Louisiana’s registered voters). As further illustration of how unprecedented black participation this strong is, in the 116 days of available data for in person early voting going all the way back to 2008, only four other times has the black early vote as a percentage of the total vote ever hit 40% (and three of those times were in 2008, when Barack Obama was first elected).”