Early voting finally concluded yesterday here in Louisiana, and some interesting results have shown up in the early voting statistics available from the LA Secretary of State’s website.

For starters, Democratic party voters outnumbered Republican voters during Louisiana’s early voting period by nearly sixteen thousand votes (i.e. ~221k Dem to ~205k Republican). For context, registered Republicans now outnumber registered Democratic voters in Louisiana by a slight margin of ~7k as of October 1st, 2026.

Over the summer, the Louisiana GOP celebrated when the Republican party in Louisiana finally surpassed the Democratic party in terms of voter registration totals. However, voter registration numbers don’t tell the full picture about Louisiana’s rightward/Republican shift in recent elections.

For reference, Louisiana Republicans actually outnumbered Democratic voters in the early voting period for both the 2022 midterms elections and the 2024 presidential elections. In fact, Republicans outnumbered Democratic voters during early voting in the 2022 midterms by ~2k and ~83k in the 2024 presidential election.

So based on the early voting data, there is some some of negative shift toward voting Republican in the 2026 midterm election cycle in Louisiana.

Now, this trend is not to say that Democratic candidate Jamie Davis will pull off a massive upset against GOP Congresswoman Julia Letlow in the US Senate general election or that we’ll Mike Johnson and or Steve Scalise losing their reelection campaigns to Congress. Historically, Republican voters in Louisiana typically tend to have stronger turnout on election day when compared to early voters. Therefore, the current odds are are slim-to-none for Louisiana’s open US Senate seat to revert back to the Democratic control.

However, there is clearly an enthusiasm gap that is starting to show up in Louisiana. Republicans and no-party conservative voters in Louisiana showed up in droves for the 2024 presidential election and even the 2022 midterm elections. However, a significant portion of these voters are not showing up to the polls during the early voting period.

Well then, what has changed in the past four years that has soured many Republican and conservative-leaning voters? What is causing a shift away from the GOP in Louisiana based on the early voting period?

In my opinion, there are three key issues that Louisiana Republicans are struggling with heading into the final stretch of the 2026 midterm elections. With the surprising early voting results in Louisiana, I would highly recommend that Republican politicians and candidates in this year’s election cycle (or even in next year’s legislative elections) consider some of these political issues and how they may be affecting voter enthusiasm:

#1: Cost-of-living crisis rages on in Louisiana (i.e. the Iran War & its consequences)

The cost-of-living is still a major issue for many Louisiana families in 2026—especially when it comes to energy and fuel costs.

According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of gas in Louisiana has risen ~45% year-over-year. The increased prices affect everybody, but particularly working-class voters who are the backbone of Louisiana’s red transformation in the past decade.

Whether people want to hear it or not, most of the price increase at the pump in the past year is due to America’s War with Iran—which all of Louisiana’s Republican US Congressmen supported. Consequently, Louisiana citizens are paying several hundred dollars more per year to fill up their gas tanks due to this foreign policy decision.

The Iran War is now polling as the one of the least popular wars in American history with less than 35% support in a recent Pew Research poll. Nevertheless, both current Republican Congressman and Congressional candidates are still echoing tone-deaf bromides about the Middle East that echo George Bush and the neoconservatives’ exact same talking points in the early 2000s—all while Louisiana citizens are struggling economically with skyrocketing gas prices and utility bills.

#2: LA Republicans’ unwavering support for controversial AI data center projects

The recent influx of massive data center projects have become a hot topic both in the United States at-large and in Louisiana in the past year.

Governor Landry and various Louisiana politicians (mainly Republicans) have frequently touted the well-known Meta data center in Richland Parish. However, many Louisiana residents have displayed mixed feelings about these projects. For instance, residents of Richland Parish and Louisiana more broadly have voiced their frustration in media interviews, social media posts, and Public Service Commission meetings. The lack of transparency from politicians (i.e. NDAs), the potential for increased utility bills, and massive corporate tax breaks (see Meta’s $3 billion tax break) are a few of the primary concerns that Louisiana citizens have voiced about the data center projects in Louisiana. Instead of properly addressing these understandable concerns, Republican politicians in Louisiana have either ignored or ridiculed Louisiana citizens for their concerns.

While there is limited polling on this topic in Louisiana, many national public polls show that Americans citizens broadly oppose data center projects in their own backyard. A recent Gallup survey from May 2026 found that roughly 70% of Americans “oppose local construction of AI data centers”. Similarly, an October 2026 poll from ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos concluded that a vast majority of Republican, Democrats, and Independent voters oppose the construction of AI data centers in their local communities.

Opposition to AI data centers is not a partisan issue currently. Yet, Republican politicians in Louisiana align much more closely with corporate interests on this controversial topic instead of their own voters.

You may wonder what is causing this rift between leading Louisiana Republicans politicians and the LAGOP versus Republican voters. Well, we may have an unfortunate answer. According to Nola.com, Meta donated substantial sums of money to both Governor Landry and the LAGOP in 2025:

Last fall, the company donated $76,000 to the Louisiana Republican Party, making it one of the top donors to the party last year. It donated another $10,000 to a Republican legislative committee and $24,000 to Landry himself, the maximum amount allowed under state law. Candidates can take $12,000 from a donor for the primary and another $12,000 for the general election.

One of the leading globalist tech companies in America is now donating to Republican politicians in Louisiana, and now populist Republican voters are somehow still expected to vote for Republican candidates who are directly opposing their interests.

#3: A Divided LAGOP over the US Senate primary last summer

Back in May, three key Republican politicians ran for the GOP’s US Senate primary election: Treasurer John Fleming, US Senator Bill Cassidy, and US Congresswoman Julia Letlow. All three candidates represented different factions within the Louisiana Republican voter base.

With the dust now settled from this primary, we can all admit that the Republican Senate primary in Louisiana became fairly heated. Negative campaign attack ads were fairly common during both the initial primary and the later primary runoff, and the eventual results showed us just how fractured the Louisiana Republican voter base truly is.

Despite receiving the endorsements of President Trump and Governor Landry, Congresswoman Julia Letlow only received 45% of the primary vote total. Letlow later on defeated John Fleming in the primary runoff election the very next month (June 2026). However, Letlow’s 57% of the primary runoff vote total is hardly a mandate from Republican voters and demonstrates that she will need to turn out Fleming and Cassidy primary voters for the general election against her Democratic opponent in Jamie Davis.

You would think that Julia Letlow’s campaign would have publicly sought to mend fences with one of her former primary opponents after such a contentious primary. However, those efforts have not been fruitful as neither Senator Bill Cassidy nor treasurer John Fleming have endorsed Julia Letlow for the general election to my knowledge.

Talk show host John Cunningham published a substack article yesterday with his take on Louisiana’s early voting statistics and his conclusion that Louisiana’s US Senate race may be closer than many expect it to be. I tend to agree with his conclusion based on the early voting data in Louisiana and the contentious Republican primary earlier this year.

Closing Thoughts

I share all this analysis above for one main reason: the power brokers and political leaders within the Republican Party need to prepare themselves for a disappointing midterm election cycle. Many conservative and populist voters across Louisiana and the United States are disenchanted with the Republican party and Republican candidates after two disappointing years of higher consumer prices, higher corporate profits, and more “forever wars”.

Instead of blaming Republican and conservative voters for the Midterm election results, Republican pols need to take a long look in the mirror and seriously consider the economic interests of Louisiana voters.

 

Nathan Koenig is a frequent contributor to RVIVR.com, a national conservative political site affiliated with The Hayride. Follow his writing on the Louisiana First Standard Substack, on Twitter (X) @LAFirstStandard, on Tik Tok @la.first.standard & on Instagram @lafirststandard. Email him here: louisianafirststandard@proton.me