Louisiana Going Blue? - New Local Poll Shows A Tie
Louisiana, the state of my birth, I was born in Lake Charles, may be going blue according to a local news poll:
NEW ORLEANS (KSLA) - A new poll you will see only on KSLA News 12 taken from October 24th through October 26th. The margin of error is 4.5 percent.
Meanwhile the race for the White House continues to tighten up, but there's signs that traditional red states, including Louisiana, could turn blue.
Renwick's poll shows Republican John McCain could be in trouble with Bayou State voters.
Until now, Louisiana was seen as a safe red state McCain, but Renwick's poll shows Democrat Barack Obama is coming on strong.
The poll shows Obama actually leading McCain 47 to 45 percent in favorability among the 500 registered voters who took part in the poll.
"They're only separated by two points and this is supposed to be a McCain state," Renwick said. "There should be a much greater differential if this is a McCain state."
But when asked if the candidates for president were John McCain and Barack Obama, which would you vote for today, McCain is ahead of Obama 43 to 40 percent, well within the margin of error of 4.5 percent. Fifteen percent didn't know and three percent said neither.
RCP does not show LA as competitive with their average at McCain
+14, I had looked at LA earlier today as far as early voting and the
African American voting was going and found similar trends to what we
are seeing in NC and GA and actually mused that it might flip as well. Louisiana's population is 32.5% black and in 2004 only 27% voted for
President. It also was 2% Latino four years ago and will be 3-4% this
year which is another good sign for a really close election In early voting 36.3% of voters are black - a full 35% more than 2004.
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267,000 voters have cast ballots thus far of 13.6% of the 2004 vote total of 1.956 M. In 2004 only 6.5% voted early.
If the voting percentages hold at 9% above 2004 that translates into at least 180,000 more Democratic votes. Bush only won LA by 281,000 votes in 2004 and so far 58.6% of early
voters are Dems and 28.6% are Repubs with 11% other. With a strong
Senate race with Mary Landrieu leading handily and an Indian Republican
governor who knows what might happen. We'll keep tracking the early vote here and see what happens.
Wouldn't that be very sweet?
October 30, 2008 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for sharing this. Can you talk to Texas for us and tell them to wake up???
October 30, 2008 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now that would be true lagniappe!
Laissez les bons temps rouler!!!
Obama, hourra!
October 30, 2008 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for posting this!
A student asked me yesterday if LA was a swing state- she will love to hear me correct myself (and I am glad to be corrected!).
October 31, 2008 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
The poll was conducted by Ed Renwick of New Orleans. He is a professor of political science at Loyola University of New Orleans and, until his recent retirement, headed the Institute of Politics there.
He's been conducting polls in Louisiana for more than 30 years. He is not a partisan and is well-respected in political circles here.
These numbers, while different from a number of other recent polls here, must be taken seriously because Renwick conducted the poll.
October 31, 2008 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, thanks for the bio. The turnout number in all these southern states is the key as is the youth vote which procrastinate and should show up Tuesday.
We could have a number of surprises and I hope LA is one along with GA.
October 31, 2008 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink