With most early vote totals in and roughly half of all precints reporting, Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, was leading the with 24% of the vote as of 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, while state Sen. Rick Edmonds, a Republican, and Democrat Chauna Banks were battling for second place.
But those numbers were sure to change as the night wore on and did not include early and absentee votes for East Baton Rouge Parish, which is home to both Banks and Edmonds.
Edmonds had 18% of the vote to Banksβ 16%, according to the preliminary numbers, which the Louisiana Secretary of State posts online as ballots are counted.
Meanwhile, in the nine-person race for the 5th District, state Rep. Pat Moore, a Democrat from Monroe, led the field with 18% of the vote and 647 of 791 precincts reporting. Three Republicans were not far behind: state Rep. Michael Echols of Monroe, state Rep. Gabe Firment of Pollock, and Misti Cordell, who chairs the Board of Regents, each had 15% or 16% of the vote.
In each race, unless someone earns more than 50% of the vote β and that outcome is highly unlikely, given how packed the fields are β the top two vote-getters will compete in a Dec. 12 run-off, regardless of party.
Both congressional districts are conservative and likely to elect a Republican in a run-off.
The 6th District covers much of the Baton Rouge area and touches the parishes of East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Assumption, St. Martin, Iberville, St. John, Pointe Coupee, Ascension and LaFourche.
U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat from Baton Rouge, currently holds that seat. He opted not to run for reelection after state lawmakers in the spring redrew the district to elect a Republican; the previous version of the map was majority-Black and stretched from Baton Rouge to Shreveport.
But in April, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Louisianaβs House map unconstitutional and gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that was long used to ensure minority votes could not be diluted in maps that either packed minority voters into one district or spread them across many districts.
The Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature then eliminated one of Louisianaβs two majority-Black districts. Previously, federal courts had held that, since one-third of Louisianaβs population is Black, Black voters, who typically elect Democrats, ought to have the power to decide the election in two of the stateβs six congressional districts.
Even with the new map, however, the outcome of the race has been anything but a foregone conclusion. Miguez and Edmonds were the best known candidates, but four other Republicans signed up to run, too, along with three Democrats and one Libertarian.