| Page 2 of 3 < > |
Nagin, Landrieu to Run Off for Mayor of New Orleans
Mayor C. Ray Nagin campaigns at a stoplight on Election Day, as New Orleans voters went to the polls for the first time since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.
(By Alex Brandon -- Associated Press)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Landrieu's sister Mary is a U.S. senator. "It's not that he's part of a family," she said when asked why he ran. "He's his own man."
Nagin, Landrieu and Ron Forman, chief executive of the Audubon Nature Institute, which runs the well-regarded zoo and aquarium here, had the most votes. With 94 percent of precincts reporting, Nagin had 38 percent (30,260 votes), Landrieu had 28 percent (22,073) and Forman had 17 percent (13,334).
Emerging from temporary homes scattered around the country, voters tried to choose a mayor they hope can restore this half-abandoned city.
Some drove in from Baton Rouge, Houston and as far away as Wisconsin. Scores of others boarded buses from Atlanta. They sat through long drives that took them in the final stretch through the empty, forlorn neighborhoods they once occupied, and said they felt compelled to make themselves heard in an election many consider a turning point in the city's history.
"The leadership of this city that comes after this horrible thing is so important," said Peggy Spiller, 53, whose home in New Orleans East was lost in the post-storm flood. She and her husband, Eddie, drove six hours from Houston to cast ballots.
How many people turned out to vote in each precinct was being viewed as an indicator of which neighborhoods are likely to be rebuilt; in many abandoned neighborhoods, people fear that residents who have left for good would not vote, revealing their lack of interest in the neighborhood and the city. Turnout could offer clues to the future racial makeup of the city.
In Lakeview, a prosperous and largely white neighborhood, some precincts had attracted voter turnout as high as 50 percent, although the area remains largely abandoned.
In the Lower Ninth Ward, a predominantly black neighborhood formerly composed of some middle-class and some poor families, turnout was much lower by Saturday afternoon -- as low as 15 percent in some precincts, poll workers said.
"A lot of my neighbors are in Texas now," said Demetris McGowan, 42, a hospital administrator who votes in a Lower Ninth Ward precinct but has been living in a nearby suburb. "I'm just sorry they didn't set up ballot booths over there."
Dennis Couvillion, 56, a lawyer and photographer who turned up Saturday to vote in Lakeview from another suburb, attributed the strong turnout in the area to people's desire to come back.
"You will not find a group more eager to return anywhere else in the city," he said. "And they know that this election may determine the kind of city they come back to."
About two-thirds of registered voters here before Hurricane Katrina were African American, and in the last open primary for mayor, about 62 percent of those who cast votes were African American.
