Lake Charles · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Lake Charles, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2024R+10.0
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+47.4
Registration leans Republican; the presidential vote runs 37 points more Republican than the rolls.
169,597 registered voters · 2024
Democratic30.4%Republican40.4%Other29.3%
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+401 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net −11,993 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Lake Charles in Lake Charles: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−356
2012
−604
2013
−188
2014
+92
2015
+1,051
2016
+1,303
2017
+443
2018
+116
2019
−709
2021
−11,190
2022
−3,664
2023
+485
2024
+827
2025
+401
The Lake Charles media market anchors Louisiana's southwestern corner, where refinery and chemical plant payrolls have historically anchored working-class Democratic loyalty that has since shifted sharply toward Republican margins over two decades.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 84.3 points in 1932 and a Republican high of 47.4 points in 2024. Between 2020 and 2024 the market moved 4.0 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 47.4 points.
A population of 271,256, a 67% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $65,740 describe the market. The market's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Beaumont-Port Arthur and Alexandria, LA.
Akashic
Political twins — media markets
The media markets whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Lake Charles, Louisiana. Akashic. https://akashic.app/dma/643/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Lake Charles, Louisiana voted Republican by 47.4 points (R+47.4), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 109,188 votes cast, 27,990 went Democratic and 79,691 went Republican.
When did Lake Charles, Louisiana last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Lake Charles, Louisiana voted Democratic was 1996.
How many people live in Lake Charles, Louisiana?
Lake Charles, Louisiana has a population of 271,256 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Lake Charles, Louisiana?
Median household income in Lake Charles, Louisiana is $65,740 — below the national median of $80,734. The Louisiana state median is $60,756.
What is the political history of Lake Charles, Louisiana?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Lake Charles, Louisiana from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 23 went Democratic and 10 went Republican.
