On October 4 (Saturday), Louisiana is holding its first regularly-scheduled partisan primaries for Congress since 1976. The law was changed in 2006 to provide that political parties nominate candidates for Congress. Between 1978 and 2006, political parties did not hold their own primaries for Congress. Instead, all candidates for Congress ran on the same ballot, and the top two vote-getters held a run-off, if no one got 50% in the first round.

Louisiana does not permit write-in votes. Therefore, if a party has no contests for Congress (because only one candidate filed in that party’s primary), the state doesn’t bother to actually hold a primary for that party, and deems the single candidate to be the nominee. The Libertarian Party only has a single candidate for U.S. Senate, and has only one for U.S. House. The Green Party only has a single candidate for U.S. House in one district. The Reform Party has no candidates for Congress. Therefore, no primary ballots were printed up for these three ballot-qualified parties.

Either a Republican or a Democratic primary contest, or both, exists in the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth districts. In the Second and Fourth districts, there are at least three candidates in one of the major party primaries. Louisiana provides that parties hold run-off primaries if no one gets 50% in the first primary. If no one gets as much as 50% in a major party primary in the Second and/or Fourth districts, the run-off primary will be on November 4, and the general election for that district will be December 6. It is very likely that no Democrat will get as much as 50% in the Second district (the New Orleans district), where William Jefferson, the incumbent, has lost support.

Louisiana expected to hold its first Congressional primary on September 6, but postponed it until October 4 because of the storms.