10:51pm: CAZAYOUX WINS! 70 more precincts were added to the SOS’s website in the space of one minute and Cazayoux had a 4,000 vote lead just among them. With only 4 precincts remaining, he is now ahead by 3,000 votes; no matter how white and conservative the last 4 precincts might be, that will not be enough for Jenkins to catch up (the race has not been officially called yet… so brace yourself for the unexpected, though I really don’t see how Jenkins could come back here).
I don’t think I have ever experienced something quite like this in an election night: This much unpredictable volatility in a matter of minutes. Even in suspenseful races, we usually know where the outstanding votes are and can thus expect the direction the race is likely to take; here, however, there was little way of knowing since all the outstanding votes were from one parish — and a parish that is clearly very polarized (a commenter at Swing State Project actually pulled off some stunning calculations to suggest a reversal was coming). This felt like the last 45 seconds of a tight basketball game in which teams keep swapping the lead.
10:50pm: Jenkins takes back the lead! What a race… As different demographics are reporting, the lead in East Baton Rouge (and in the district) is oscillating. With 40 precincts, Jenkins erased a 2,000 vote deficit and is now up 900 votes!
10:45pm: Cazayoux takes the lead for the first time. 50 precincts reported in Baton Rouge (100 more to go), and Cazayoux had a 4,000 vote advantage in those precint alone, giving him a 2,000 vote lead! It looks like those 50 precincts were heavily African-American. Once again, we can’t know where the remaining precincts are located.
10:40: Now that the last Livingston precinct has reported, it is all up to East Baton Rouge… which has apparently decided to make us wait with no update to their numbers for 20 minutes now. The reason it is difficult to know what is going on is that this parish contains both very conservative precinct and precincts with significant black population. In the primary last month, African-American state representative Michael Jackson beat Cazayoux by 1,000 votes in this perish. Depending on the demographics of the remaining half of the district, this could really go either way…
10:25pm: This is getting to be as exciting as Guam! West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana fully reported and Jenkins’ lead was down to 900 votes. But a new group of votes from East Baton Rouge inflated Jenkins advantage to 2,000 votes again. Jenkins is back in the lead in East Baton Rouge with half of the precincts there counted… Cazayoux has to win approximately 56% of the remaining Baton Rouge votes…
10:20pm: It’s going to be very difficult to know what is going on in LA-06. Apart from the 200 East Baton Rouge precincts, we are waiting for 1 from Livingston (big for GOP), 5 from West Baton Rouge (big for Dem) and 4 from West Feliciana (tight). Needless to say, results from East Baton Rouge will determine where this goes which means we will not be able to estimate where the voters are likely to come from… and we will have to just wait it out.
10:15: Dramatic movement! With a third of East Baton Rouge now reporting, Cazayoux is now ahead by 900 votes in that perish and trails by 2.5% (1,400 votes) district-wide. There clearly is a lot of disparity in the voting patterns within Baton Rouge (there is no way for us to know where results are coming from within a county). Democrats better hope there is more of where this came from… as this doesn’t negate the turnout patterns I identified at 10:10pm.
10:10pm: Compare the turnout by parish today with that of the primary last month and you will understand why Jenkins is leading so big. Republican turnout has dramatically improved, while Democratic turnout hasn’t. In Pointe Coupe, a blue stronghold, 1800 voters voted in the Democratic primary and 2500 voted for Cazayoux today. In Livingston, less than 4,000 voted in the GOP primary but Jenkins got nearly 9000 votes today.
Meanwhile, we are back to a 7% lead for Jenkins (4,000 votes) with 52% reporting. Cazayoux needs to significantly improve his showing in East Baton Rouge; he now trails by 1,500 votes there.
10:05pm: Cazayoux is not catching up and now trails by 10% and 5,000 votes. 47% of the precincts have reported and nearly all outstanding votes will come from East Baton Rouge… though Cazayoux trails there by 1,300 votes by now. A surprisingly easy hold for Republicans?
9:55pm: Good news for both candidates. With more than a third of precincts reporting, Jenkins leads by more than 8% (3,000 votes). East Baton Rouge (which has 100 more precincts than all the other parishes combined) is starting to come in and Jenkins is for now ahead by 1000; if he keeps that going, he will have a good night. Also, some of the strongest (but smallest) Democratic parishes are now almost fully reporting. The good news for Cazayoux is that 86% of Livingston is already in, and a large part of Ascension too. Cazayoux will need strong numbers in Baton Rouge.
9:50pm: 18% of the precincts are now reporting, and Jenkins is continuing to lead big, 51% to 46% (a 1,000 margin). The district’s two Republican strongholds (Ascension and Livingston) are respectively 25% and 41% in, which is good news for Cazayoux (Livingston is giving more than 70% of its vote to Jenkins). East Baton Rouge, which will likely decide the winner, hasn’t really started reporting yet.
9:30pm: Results can be found on the Louisiana SOS’s website. Results are trickling in slowly for now. With more than 3% of precincts reporting (plus absentees), Woody Jenkins is ahead 50% to 45%! Livingston County, a GOP stronghold and Jenkins’ base, is allowing the Republican to take a big early lead.
Original post: Polls close in a few minutes in LA-06 and Democrats are looking to get their second pick-up in a row in a red district after their remarkable victory in IL-14. A very Republican district that Bush won with more than 60%, LA-06 was on few people’s radar as of the beginning of April. Yet, the GOP began panicking as soon as Woody Jenkins and his sulfurous connections won his primary. The DCCC dumped in more than $1 million on behalf of Don Cazayoux and, despite a short period of time in which it seemed the GOP would abandon Jenkins, Republicans spent heavily on his behalf, boosted by outside groups such as Club for Growth and Freedom’s Watch.
A number of internal polls realized in the past month showed Cazayoux narrowly ahead, with SUSA’s poll a few days ago finding him to be leading by 9%. However, Republicans have done a lot to nationalize the election and portray the Democrat as a tax-obsessed liberal with ties to (gasp) Barack Obama. Complicating matters even more for Cazayoux is news that African-American state representative Michael Jackson, who lost to Cazayoux in the primary, has been running TV ads in the district to announce that he will be running as an independent in the November general election; this could end up costing Cazayoux some of the support he needs in the district’s African-American parishes.
Despite the fact that expectations clearly are that Cazayoux will win tonight’s election, keep in mind that such a suggestion would seemed shocking just 6 weeks ago and that the loss of two back-to-back red districts (with MS-01 around the corner) would send Republicans reeling.
Taniel,
What is your main source for the LA-6 special election results?
Woody’s lead is holding up–so far. This will be a long night in LA-6.
What a race! It’s surprising that it’s so tight.
I’m surprised that Woody has held a lead all night–I would believe he would have lost by now.
Cazayoux is now ahead by 2000 votes. Good night Woody!
Never mind–Woody is awake with a 900 vote lead!
Cazayoux won!!!! Up 3,000 votes, 4 precincts left.
Cazayoux should have won by a larger percentage–something weird happened in LA-06.
Wow, Taniel, you almost sounded like a sports commentator there (though I admit that it was quite an intense election)
The reason the margin was closer was the late GOP push to tie Obama to Cazayoux, which may have driven up GOP turnout. And I suspected the undecideds in the SUSA poll were nearly all Republicans, who needed a reason to vote.
Obama may be toxic in November in the South. That would be a cause for concern.
Republicans brought this on themselves
1st Baker had to quit early to force his party to defend this seat
2nd Republicans chose and settled with the flawed and polarizing Woody Jenkins
and lastly Bobby Jindal had to stick his nose into the leadership races in the legislature, kicking Cazayoux into the race that he just WON!
This is bad news for the GOP, as they had just lost a very conservative district. However, if Micahel Jackson is really going to run in the November general election as an independent, he will help Jenkins talk back the seat for the GOP by leech African American votes away from Cazayoux.
I think the MS-01 race is going to matter more because Davis is a much stronger candidate than Jenkins and the GOP and allied gropus have been hitting Childers harder on Obama in that race then the LA one.
The results, direct from the Louisiana SOS website:
Cazayoux (D): 49,702 (49.20%)
Jenkins (R): 46,701 (46.27%)
Casey (I): 3,718 (3.68%)
Aranyosi: 448 (0.44%)
Hayes: 402 (0.40%)
Margin: Cazayoux + 3,001 (+2.93%)
And this was a CD with a PVI rating of R +6.5.
Bush won this CD in 2000 with 55%.
He won it again in 2004 with 59%
Hordes of money got socked into this race and the GOP tried as hard as it could to pin Cazayoux to Barack Obama as a test to see what would happen nationally. They smeared the name Wright to Obama in every imaginable way.
And we see the result. The democrat won.
My take: I am sure Cazayoux won partly because the GOP was actually very turned off by Jenkins, who is a racist and and anti-semite and with a criminal record to prove it. So, had the GOP run a respectable candidate, he probably would have run.
Yea, Jenkins was a shit candidate to say the least.
When are these parties gonna learn. People vote for CANDIDATES, not parties.
I’m a GOPer for sure, but no doubt, the best candidate won. Lets hope the GOP doesn’t run a total shit candidate in Nov.
So being associated with Obama is not a problem. The anti-Obama people would have had plenty to say if the candidate had lost. A win is a win!
110th Congress as of 5/4/08:
235 Democrats
199 Republicans
1 Vacancy (MS-01)
110th Congress as of 5/14/08
236 Democrats with Childers
199 Republicans
or
235 Democrats
200 Republicans with Davis
111th Congress Predictions:
246 Democrats (DEM+10)
189 Republicans (GOP-10)
GOP would need to then take 29 seats in the 2010 mid-term election to regain the majority. I assume this was all in Rove’s master plan for a continuous Republican Majority right?
I was all for the GOP until the NRCC supported Jenkins-he’s a major racist. The GOP is all about power and the ability to keep the socio-economic disadvantaged people down. I renounce the GOP.
Go Obama.
i know this is off topic but just heard Hillary say she wasn’t interested in the opinions of economic experts vis-a-vis her gas tax gimmick. Last thing we need is another President that won’t listen to common sense.(or the “experts”) Eight years of one bull-headed jackass is enough.