Students and a member of the Zulu Tramps march to a campus polling place on Election Day at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In a critical election year, Democrats are looking to flip a once reliably Republican Louisiana congressional seat, where political boundaries were recently redrawn to form the state’s second mostly Black congressional district.

Five hours after the polls closed in Louisiana the question of whether Democrat Cleo Fields would win the the election outright, or if Republican Elbert Guillory would force a December runoff between the two candidates was still too early to call.

Under Louisiana’s open primary system — in which candidates of all parties appear on the Election Day ballot — if no candidate is the majority winner, earning one more than 50% of the total votes cast, then the two top vote-getting candidates head to a runoff that will be held on Dec. 7.

Based upon the Louisiana Secretary of State's unofficial voting results early Wednesday morning, Fields held a lead but narrowly met the threshold to avoid a runoff.

With five people on the ballot for Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District, Democrats have thrown their support behind longtime politician Fields, 61. The state senator has been involved in state politics for three decades and served two terms in Congress after being elected in 1992.

Across the aisle, Republicans are looking to preserve the seat, especially in an election year where the GOP is trying to hold on to their majority in the U.S. House. The only Republican on the ballot is former state lawmaker Guillory, 80.

For nearly 50 years, only one Democrat has won the seat in Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District. But the district’s boundaries have recently been recrafted.

In January state lawmakers passed Louisiana’s new congressional map with a second majority-Black district, marking a win for Democrats and civil rights groups after a legal battle and political tug-of-war that spanned nearly two years.

The new 6th District boundaries stretch across the state in a narrow and diagonal path, from the state capital, Baton Rouge, to Shreveport in the northwest corner. Black residents account for 54% of its voters, up from 24% previously. Both Fields and Guillory are Black.

A lower court ruled that the new map was an illegal racial gerrymander, but in May the Supreme Court ordered Louisiana to use it in this year’s congressional elections — boosting Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the closely divided House.

Currently, out of Louisiana’s six congressional seats, there is one Democrat, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, the state’s sole Black member of Congress.

Noticeably absent from the race is incumbent U.S. Rep. Garret Graves. The white Republican announced that he would not seek reelection, saying that it did not make sense to run under the new map.

All of Louisiana’s six congressional seats are up for election. The five other races feature incumbents, including two of the country's most powerful Republicans – U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Also seeking reelection are Carter and Republicans Clay Higgins and Julia Letlow. All the incumbents are facing lesser-known challengers on the ballot.

News from © The Associated Press, 2024