….for starters early voting numbers are down in what’s left of their strongholds. According to the Times-Picayune, early voting is down dramatically from last year’s Senate race.

But what happened in liberal Orleans Parish is echoed in other core constituencies of the Democratic Party. Black voter turnout, for example, was significantly lower than overall early voting response.

African-American participation in early voting fell 25 percent statewide from 2014 to 2015, more than twice as much as the general population’s. Black voter participation in New Orleans was just 5.9 percent overall.

By contrast, white and Republican voter turnout stayed relatively stable statewide. White voters in Louisiana came out to vote early at approximately the same rate as they did in 2014. Republicans early voting participation dropped slightly, but not nearly as much as the general population’s.

“Whites and Republicans were almost as motivated to vote early in this election as they were in 2014. The same cannot be said for Democratic supporters,” wrote Ed Chervenak, director of the University of New Orleans Survey Research Center, in an analysis of the early voting data.

However, Democrats are putting up a brave face and saying they’re not worried about Saturday. They believe that John Bel Edwards still has a good chance of making the runoff because he’s the lone Democrat.

However, that’s not how I’m reading these numbers. I’m reading this as conservative voters are more than ready to go vote and will be voting in droves on Saturday. That will be very bad news for Democrats and their allies in the media and the trial lawyers.

Here’s what I think will be the most likely scenario in the governor’s race. Vitter will run first, probably with close to, if not over 40% of the vote. In fact, I’ll go so far to say that he has an outside shot of winning the race outright on Saturday. If there is a runoff, it will be a mere formality.

There’s also another possible scenario in play, Edwards can be squeezed out of the runoff by either Jay Dardenne or Scott Angelle. You would think that Dardenne has the better chance of sneaking into the runoff than Edwards. If the runoff is Vitter vs Angelle or Dardenne, then all bets are off. It’s a whole new race.

Louisiana is a conservative state no matter what the media and the left tells itself. Saturday’s election results will reflect that once and for all.