By Blake Paterson • November 3, 2026

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It’ll likely be a long night before we learn the results of Louisiana’s Senate contest between GOP Rep. Julia Letlow and Democrat Jamie Davis.

Polls close at 8 p.m. and some parishes (ahem, Caddo, East Baton Rouge) are infamously slow in delivering their vote totals to the Secretary of State.

But we should get a good sense of where the race stands when parish-level absentee and early voting results are published Tuesday night, usually right after the polls close.

When those numbers drop, pollster John Couvillon told Perdido Street he’ll be paying close attention to two parishes in particular: Jefferson and St. Tammany.

“If Jamie were to make a breakthrough, or Julia were to hold the line, it would be apparent in those two parishes,” said Couvillon, with Baton Rouge-based JMC Analytics and Polling.

Nearly 536,000 voters cast their ballot early in Louisiana, a record for a midterm election. Black voters accounted for 34.4% of the ballots cast, even though they make up only 31.4% of the electorate, buoying Democrats’ hopes of an upset victory. (Registered Democrats also outnumber registered Republicans among early voters, 43% to 39%.)

The typical path to victory for Louisiana Democrats in a statewide contest requires winning 30% of the white vote and for at least 30% of the total votes cast to come from Black voters, Couvillon said.

Democrats can usually count on receiving around 85% of the vote in solidly blue Orleans Parish, he said.

But he noted that Jefferson and St. Tammany, the state’s second and fourth most populous parishes respectively, are more liable to shifts.

Once a conservative stronghold, Jefferson is now one of Louisiana’s most diverse parishes. In recent elections, it’s swung for both parties.

In 2019, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards won Jefferson with 57% of the vote, while Republican Donald Trump carried it with 55% in 2024.

St. Tammany Parish, meanwhile, is solidly Republican. But its voters aren’t in the tank for the GOP to the same degree that voters in Orleans are for Democrats.

Edwards won 40% of the vote in St. Tammany in 2019. Compare that to the 2024 presidential contest, where fellow Democrat Kamala Harris won just 27% of the vote.

If Davis matches Edwards’ 2019 performance in Jefferson and St. Tammany, Democrats could have a real shot at winning the race, Couvillon said.

Pollster Greg Rigamer, with the Metairie-based consulting firm BDLC, told Perdido Street he’ll also be watching how the early voting results compare to the 2024 presidential election, when the two parties also faced off in a head-to-head contest.

Of course, the early vote accounts for only a fraction of the total votes cast.

Still, Couvillon (who is in Washington, D.C. to appear on Chuck Todd’s election night podcast) said he doesn’t expect to see major demographic shifts in the electorate that shows up on Election Day versus during early voting.

I'll be monitoring election returns from Davis’ watch party in Baton Rouge. Follow @blakepater and @perdidostnews on X for live updates.

And if you haven’t voted, you have until 8 p.m. to get in line. Click here to find your polling location.