BATON ROUGE — Candidates began officially qualifying for six redrawn congressional districts, with many of the same faces from earlier this year returning to the State Archives Building to file again formally.

Among those qualifying were four Republican candidates for the redrawn Sixth Congressional District.

Many of the candidates who qualified Wednesday also qualified in February when the congressional map looked totally different.

Political analyst James Hartman said the next few days could still bring some surprises.

"There are almost always surprises during qualifying, with who decides to run and who doesn't at the last minute, so these next three days will be interesting," Hartman said.

Six months ago, Larry Davis qualified for the U.S. House Fifth District. After redistricting, he is now qualifying for the Sixth District.

"We're counting it as number three, because originally we filed F.E.C. paperwork in the fifth before switching to the sixth," Davis said. "My team and I have been saying third time is the charm."

The reason candidates are going through this process again traces back to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down Louisiana's previous congressional map after the February qualifying period. The court's majority called the map, which had two majority minority districts, racially gerrymandered and unconstitutional.

Gov. Jeff Landry responded by suspending the House race to give state lawmakers time to redraw the districts. After legislative disagreements and a lawsuit challenging the redrawn map, the matter has since been settled.

That means candidates like state Sen. Rick Edmonds, who supported the new map drawn in the legislature, had to show up and qualify all over again.

"You know in life I've learned you've got to go with the flow. I don't know what else Governor Landry could have done. I think under the circumstances, he chose the wise path," Edmonds said. "Listen, we're meeting new people."

Not every candidate was as upbeat about starting the process over. Michael Mebruer, who was originally running for the Fifth District in February, said the redraw cost him.

"I was originally running for the fifth back in February before they redrew everything at exactly the last moment, and I wasted $35,000 of my own money," Mebruer said. He added he was "just happy to get a chance to go for it again."

Monique Appeaning also qualified for the Sixth Congressional District. She was not available for an on-camera interview but told WBRZ she was excited for the new race.

Party primaries for these races will be held on the same day as the general election for other races, Nov. 3.