AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Louisiana’s presidential primaries

WASHINGTON (AP) — Louisiana politics have been dominated this year by new Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s special legislative sessions to address crime and adopt new congressional maps. On Saturday, the focus will shift to the state’s presidential primaries.

There’s little doubt who will win.

Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump, the former president, unofficially sewed up their parties’ nominations last week. But the process of selecting the nominees has long depended on voters in places such as Louisiana and about two dozen other states and territories where people will vote in primaries and caucuses long after the presumptive nominees have been determined.

Louisiana also did not play a decisive role in the 2020 primaries.

It had planned to hold a contest on April 4 of that year, but instead became the first state to postpone its primary in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a second delay, Louisiana held its primary on July 11, followed only by a Democratic primary in Puerto Rico the next day. Biden and Trump, who had already unofficially clinched the 2020 nominations by then, easily won in Louisiana.

The Louisiana primaries were more competitive in 2016, when they were held in early March, just after that year’s Super Tuesday. Trump narrowly edged Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in a four-way contest that also included Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich. On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trounced Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

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