{"id":295237,"date":"2010-02-08T14:08:28","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T19:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.southernstudies.org,2010:\/\/5.12132"},"modified":"2010-02-12T11:54:04","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T16:54:04","slug":"who-dat-in-the-new-orleans-mayors-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/295237","title":{"rendered":"Who dat in the New Orleans mayor&#8217;s office?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/Mitch%20Landrieu.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mitch Landrieu.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.southernstudies.org\/assets_c\/2010\/02\/Mitch%20Landrieu-thumb-250x237.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"margin: 0pt 0pt 20px 20px; float: right;\" height=\"237\" width=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/span>With the Saints en route to a dazzling Super Bowl victory and Mardi Gras celebrations <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mardigrasneworleans.com\/mgdates.html\">ramping up towards Fat Tuesday<\/a>, in New Orleans it was almost an afterthought that they were electing a mayor this weekend.<\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=xa-4b707226222b77a6\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" style=\"border: 0pt none ;\" height=\"16\" width=\"125\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js#username=xa-4b707226222b77a6\"><\/script><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<p>But in many ways, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu&#8217;s landslide victory in the mayoral race was just as eye-opening as a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mlive.com\/sports\/index.ssf\/2010\/02\/tracy_porters_interception_of.html\">Terry Porter interception<\/a> or a shiny <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mardigrasneworleans.com\/parades-shangri-la.html\">Shangri-La krewe<\/a> float. <\/p>\n<p>Landrieu was heavily favored in the 11-strong field of mayoral hopefuls. But the final votes were even more lopsided than expected: When the dust settled, <a href=\"http:\/\/electionresults.sos.louisiana.gov\/weborb30\/SOSElection\/SOSElection.html#\">Landrieu garnered 66% of the city vote<\/a>, easily enough to bypass a run-off and assume leadership of the city.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some numbers and history to give you a sense of just how big Landrieu&#8217;s landslide victory was:<\/p>\n<p>* Out of 366 precincts in Orleans Parish, <b>Landrieu got 50% or more of the vote in all but 10 of them, or 97% of all precincts<\/b>. Landrieu was the leader, winning the plurality of votes, in all precincts but one (09-45A, in far-east Lake Catherine).<\/p>\n<p>* Landrieu also won <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nola.com\/politics\/index.ssf\/2010\/02\/early_voting_results_favor_lan.html\">64% of early voters<\/a>, about two-thirds of which were African American voters.<\/p>\n<p>* Landrieu&#8217;s dominance is especially notable given that primaries for New Orleans mayoral races are usually at least somewhat competitive: <b>Only three primary races have avoided run-offs <\/b>in the last 24 years:<\/p>\n<p><b>NOLA MAYOR PRIMARY VOTE LEADERS, 1986 &#8211; 2010<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>2010 &#8211; Mitch Landrieu &#8211; 66% (no run-off)<\/b><br \/>2006 &#8211; Ray Nagin &#8211; 38% (won in run-off)<br \/>2002 &#8211; Ray Nagin &#8211; 29% (won in run-off)<br \/><b>1998 &#8211; Marc Morial &#8211; 79% (no run-off)<\/b><br \/>1994 &#8211; Donald Mintz &#8211; 37% (lost in run-off to Marc Morial)<br \/><b>1990 &#8211; Sidney Barthelemy &#8211; 54% (no run-off)<\/b><br \/>1986 &#8211; William Jefferson &#8211; 39% (lost in run-off to Sidney Barthelemy)<\/p>\n<p>Landrieu clearly had a lot going for him: Name recognition, lineage in one of Louisiana&#8217;s most powerful political families, support from the state Democratic machine and a healthy campaign war chest.<\/p>\n<p>But Landrieu had many of those same advantages in 2006, when he pushed Ray Nagin to a run-off but ultimately lost 52-48.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2006 election, Nagin was propelled to victory largely thanks to massive turnout from African-American voters, who drove hundreds of miles from places like Atlanta, Houston and Memphis to ensure their voice was heard and the city&#8217;s black political heritage was protected.<\/p>\n<p>For various reasons, many African-American voters pulled the lever for Landrieu this time. But there are understandably mixed feelings about the first white mayor taking office since 1978, when Landrieu&#8217;s father Moon Landrieu left office.<\/p>\n<p>Beneath the excitement of the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, one statistic from Saturday&#8217;s election reveals the ongoing struggles the people of New Orleans face: In 2006, there were 442 voting precincts in New Orleans. <\/p>\n<p>This year, there were only 366 precincts &#8212; a reflection of the fact that since Katrina, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gnocdc.org\/Factsforfeatures\/WhoDat\/index.html\">at least 20% of the population has never made it home<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the Saints en route to a dazzling Super Bowl victory and Mardi Gras celebrations ramping up towards Fat Tuesday, in New Orleans it was almost an afterthought that they were electing a mayor this weekend. But in many ways, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu&#8217;s landslide victory in the mayoral race was just as eye-opening as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4084,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}