The reintroduction of semi-closed party primary federal elections in Louisiana is accelerating the decline in Democratic voter registration, with historical precedent suggesting that the other major party—Republicans—benefits in different ways at different times. Still, they remain on track to become the state’s largest party, aligning with their overwhelming electoral success.
July figures for voting registrations show Democrats with about a 46,000 lead with 36.7 percent of registrants over the GOP with 35.2 percent. Consider that 21 years ago Democrats more than doubled up Republicans and had a lead approaching a million potential voters, having back then 56.1 percent of all registrants.
However, the state keeps records not published on its website of a subset of active voters or those who haven’t missed two consecutive federal election cycles. John Couvillion of JMC Analytics and Polling, a political research firm, obtained the master file of voters from the state and calculated among active voters Republicans actually now lead in registrations by around 38,000.
This has been a broad secular trend, Republicans significantly on the rise and Democrats shedding registrants, for almost half a century in Louisiana (more slowly over the preceding two decades), at a fairly consistent pace. Candidates for Congress traditionally qualified in July, and looking at those months from 2004 to 2008 Democrats lost 3.3 percentage points; from 2008 to 2012 they lost 4.2; from 2012 to 2016 they lost 3.4; from 2016 to 2020 they lost 3.4; and from 2020 to 2024 they lost 3.9. Over the past year, they dropped 1.2 points: 0.9 in the last half of last year and another 0.3 the first half of this year for a computed quadrennial rate of 4.8.
The 2004 to 2012 period bears further scrutiny, as within these quadrennial periods from 2004 to 2020 except for the 4.2 jump up from 2008 to 2012 the decline consistently was in the 3.3-3.4 range. In 2006, the Legislature passed into law a change from the blanket primary to open primary systems for congressional elections, effective in 2007. Until then, only presidential preference primaries featured any kind of closed primary.
In this new version, parties had the option of allowing unaffiliated voters a chance to participate in their congressional primaries—an option the Democrats chose to allow but Republicans didn’t. Interestingly, when the law took effect Democrat registrations plunged by half a percent in the first half of 2007, while the GOP proportion remained unchanged. As a result, “other” voters—mostly unaffiliated, or “no party” voters—accounted for virtually all of that shift. This suggests that a small portion of Democrats, almost certainly those who had often voted for non-Democratic candidates under the blanket primary system, chose to detach themselves. Likely, they were preparing for a future party switch, while still leaving the door open to vote in Democratic primaries if a preferable candidate emerged.
A different pattern emerged over the following year, leading up to 2008 qualifying—the first run-through of semi-closed congressional primaries. Democrats lost another 0.5 percentage points, but this time Republicans gained 0.4, with the remainder shifting to “other” registrations. With candidates already on the hustings, it appears a small portion of Democrats were intrigued enough by GOP contenders to abandon their party in order to participate in the Republican primary—at a rate above the usual decline in Democrat registrations.
The 2010 election also featured semi-closed congressional primaries, but the system was scrapped amid complaints of cost and complexity. Even with the 2012 cycle conducted under the old blanket primary rules, the rate of Democratic decline was almost a full percentage point higher than the quadrennial average over that four-year period.
Now, the semi-closed primary is back—this time with a statute requiring parties to allow unaffiliated voters to participate in the primary of their choosing—and the same initial pattern has reemerged. In the first half of this year, a 0.3-point drop among Democrats was matched by a 0.3-point increase among others. Since the law’s enactment, the 1.2-point drop among Democrats—most of which came in the 0.9-point plunge in the last half of last year, with Republicans picking up nearly all of it—surpasses the combined 0.8-point drop observed in the two halves of 2006–07.
Note that qualifying has changed in this new version, now occurring early next year with the primaries in the spring rather than the late summer. That may explain this larger shift as potential voters have to get out ahead of the election much quicker. And if the pattern holds, even earlier than a year from, more like the start of 2026, Democrats’ number will erode even greater with Republicans picking up a majority of that proportion as past voting behavior is forced more into line with registration as a result of the semi-closed stricture.
That may not be enough to push the GOP past Democrats, but a year from now with nominees decided and midterm elections on tap in four months, expect Republicans finally to blow past Democrats registered in the state, which likely hasn’t been observed in around 150 years since Reconstruction when the rules were rigged to favor GOP registrations. No such chicanery will be needed this time; it’s all organic and policy-driven.