Even if Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards wins his runoff next month, there's a strong chance he'd spend a second term opposed by a Republican-dominated legislature able to override his vetoes.
The GOP has in fact already secured the necessary two-thirds supermajority in the state Senate as a result of Saturday's primaries, with Republicans guaranteed to hold 26 seats in the 39-member chamber to just 12 for Democrats. (They're also likely to win a runoff against a Democrat in the conservative 16th District, though at the moment there's a tie for the second slot between the two Republican contenders. That would set up an extremely rare three-way second round, where a plurality would be sufficient for victory.)
The 105-member state House, meanwhile, is hanging by a very slender thread. Republicans have secured 63 seats versus 33 for Democrats and would need 70 for a supermajority (one seat is held by an independent). Eight districts will host runoffs on Nov. 16, including five that feature Republican-vs.-Democrat matchups and two that will pit Republicans against independents. (In one matchup, a Democrat is running against an independent.)
Republicans therefore need to win all seven of the races where they're fielding candidates, and they're in a position to run the table since they took a majority of the vote in each of these contests in the first round. It's not a foregone conclusion, though, as Louisiana Democrats tend to perform better in runoffs. Voting is also less polarized in the Pelican State than in most other places, so there's a higher than normal chance of a second-round surge for Team Blue.
But even if Republicans don't reach the 70-seat mark, they may be able to entice independents or conservative Democrats to side with them on key votes, or even lure some Democrats in red seats to switch parties—the flipside of Louisiana's more fluid relationship with partisanship.
This cuts both ways, though, as Edwards has successfully worked with GOP lawmakers over the years to expand Medicaid, increase tax revenues, and even adopt criminal justice reforms that reduced lengthy prison sentences. So even Republican supermajorities would not necessarily mean that Edwards, should he be re-elected, would get steamrolled, though Louisiana Democrats would prefer not to give the GOP the opportunity.
