BATON ROUGE — Louisiana held its presidential primary Saturday, an election that was postponed twice because of the coronavirus outbreak and pushed back so many months that it became irrelevant to the selection of the Democratic nominee to challenge Donald Trump.
Before Louisiana’s election results were tallied, it already was decided that Trump would face former Vice President Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election.
Trump was expected to easily win Louisiana’s GOP primary, where he faces four other Republicans on the ballot seeking the nomination. Biden was one of 14 Democrats on Louisiana’s ballot.
Polls closed at 8 p.m. Saturday.
During the pandemic, voters had extra days of early voting and expanded mail-in balloting options, boosting the number of votes cast ahead of Election Day to historic levels. Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s office took extra precautions at polling sites as well, saying workers would regularly sanitize voting areas and wipe down machines.
Louisiana’s presidential primary is one of the latest in the nation this cycle, after being delayed two times from its original April 4 date. Only Connecticut has a presidential primary later, on Aug. 11, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.