• One Week Left: Predicting the 2024 Elections

  • Oct 25 2024
  • Length: 54 mins
  • Podcast

One Week Left: Predicting the 2024 Elections

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  • Summary

  • Hy and Christopher attempt to forecast the upcoming election’s result with two special guests, GOP congressional candidate Elbert Guillory and famed political consultant James Farwell.

    Guillory joins Hy and Christopher to kick off the show, outlining how he has a chance of victory in a district which should not be friendly for Republicans. Early voting may provide a clue to why he is so upbeat.

    In 2020, 986,428 people in Louisiana voted early. As of Thursday evening October 25, 519,304 people in the Pelican State had cast their ballots, which far exceeds the same total at the same point in early voting four years ago.

    Deputy Secretary for Communications Joel Watson at the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office told KLFY TV, while 38 percent of total votes came from early voting in 2020, they predict 40 to 45 percent of total votes will come from early voting this year. “Statewide, we are seeing a 10 percent increase in in-person, early voting,” said Watson.

    Simultaneously this year, more Republicans than Democrats have cast their ballots early. In 2020, more Democrats voting early exceeded Republicans. “In 2020, those who are registered Democrats accounted for about 45 percent of the electorate through five days of early voting,” Watson said. “This year, we’re seeing that flip, and about 45 percent of the electorate over five days of early voting this year is Republican.”

    Watson warned that early voting did not necessarily signal higher overall turnout, but may only indicate a change in voting patterns. “For this year, for instance, we’re seeing a higher in-person early voting number, but we expect turn out to be around about the same as we saw in 2020, which was around 70 percent,” he explained.

    Still, some LA GOP candidates see increased early voting as their pathway to victory. As noted, our guest former Republican state Senator Elbert Guillory seeks an upset in the newly redrawn 6th Congressional District over frontrunner (former Democratic Congressman) Cleo Fields. “We are seeing tremendous enthusiasm” in early voting, Guillory explained in his interview with Hy and Christopher.

    Besides Fields, four other Democrats are running in the 6th District along with the Black Republican from Opelousas. That potentially divides the left-wing electorate, he reasoned. Higher GOP turnout in the November primary than in past years, which Guillory believes is signaled by the early voting numbers, could keep Fields below the 50 percent threshold of victory. In a consequent December runoff, where historically Republicans have exceeded Democrats in turnout, Guillory maintained that he stands a good chance of upsetting Fields’ bid to return to the US House, even though Guillory runs a Republican contender in this solidly Democratic district. Both candidates represented Black majority districts within the newly drawn congressional seat and actually served together as state senators in the LA Legislative Black Caucus.

    Hy and Christopher then switch gears and examine the state of the presidential race with one of the greats of political consulting in modern American history, James Farwell. We focus upon how tight the election is nationally, and how voting trends show that Donald Trump remains evenly tied with Kamala Harris with just over a week remaining. It is anyone’s guess what could happen, but Farwell warns that Republican moderates are still up for grabs.

    Farwell does note that the GOP possesses a real shot of seizing control of the US Senate, perhaps with as many as 54 seats, thanks to Trump‘s coattails as well as those who might vote for Harris but wish to put a break on her power, but he agrees with Christopher that the chances may not look so good for the GOP to keep possession of the US House. Harris has coattails of her own in the suburban-held New York and California congressional districts which the GOP relies upon for the party’s congressional majority.

    Everyone wonders, however, if the ill partisan feelings of this election cycle will last well beyond election day— no matter which presidential candidate wins. Things get heated in our conversation on this week’s show!
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