Helena Moreno’s resounding outright victory on Saturday came as New Orleans voters, hungry for change, made their strongest showing for a mayoral election in over 20 years.
Over 40% of registered voters cast ballots, the highest recorded unofficial turnout for a mayor’s race since Ray Nagin won the seat in 2002 and 48% of voters cast ballots. More recent elections have hovered at anywhere from 29% to 38% turnout.
About 55% of those who voted in this election pulled the lever for Moreno, who vowed to ensure top-tier city services and focus on the city’s underdeveloped areas such as New Orleans East, and who led the race in polling and fundraising from its start.
“People were clamoring for change,” said Ed Chervenak, a political science professor at the University of New Orleans who analyzed the turnout data. “It wasn’t a status quo election. This was a change election, and that motivates people to show up.”
Other analysts agreed that Moreno’s message and record resonated with most voters.
“There was a desire for stability, addressing the critical issues of infrastructure, quality of life, public safety, affordability — all of those issues challenging voters stimulated a higher voter turnout and higher voter interest,” said Silas Lee, a Xavier University professor and veteran political analyst.
State Sen. Royce Duplessis, Moreno’s nearest challenger who received 22% of the votes cast, had less luck with a platform that sought to lay blame at Moreno’s feet for “chaos in City Hall,” to appeal to some voters’ desire for a leader who is Black or native to the city, and to fault Moreno for the numerous recent city challenges that came as she led an increasingly powerful council.
City Councilmember Oliver Thomas, who was widely seen as a mayor-in-waiting before he was hit with federal bribery charges and served prison time, notched just 19% of the vote with a message that centered on a comeback story and highlighted his experience in government over three council terms.
District-level analysis
While precinct-by-precinct voting analysis was not available over the weekend, Chervenak’s initial analysis of Election day votes found that Moreno won a clear majority of votes cast in City Council Districts A, B, and C.
She did the best – capturing 74% of the vote – in Council District A, which covers parts of uptown Uptown and Lakeview. In Council District B, she took 63% of the election day vote. That district covers parts of uptown and the Central Business District.
In Council District C, which spans from the French Quarter to the Bywater, and includes the West Bank, she took 53% of the vote.
Duplessis captured only 12%, 18%, and 22% of the vote in district A, B, and C, respectively. Thomas fared worse, getting only 8% of the vote in A, 14% in B, and 21% in C.
Council District D, which coves Gentilly and as well as parts of the 7th and 9th Wards, where powerbrokers and political organizations rallied behind Duplessis. There, Duplessis and Thomas won more votes combined – 29% and 25%, respectively – than Moreno won alone, 42%.
And Thomas notched roughly 35% of the vote in District E, where he represents the East and the Lower 9th Ward. Moreno was a close second there with 32% of the vote while Duplessis trailed both of them with 29% of the vote.
The city has around 263,000 registered voters, and about 142,000 — or 54% — are Black. Another 96,000 — or 36% — are White. About 56% are female, and 43% are male.
Statistics on the race and gender of Election Day voters have not been released by the Louisiana Secretary of State yet. Analysts also couldn’t immediately say how many Black, White, female or male voters supported various candidates.
Early voting more popular
Early voting trends this year were a big indicator that overall turnout would be larger than usual. During a week-long early voting period, 39,000 voters cast ballots in-person and via mail. That turnout was larger than every New Orleans mayoral primary election dating back to at least 2010.
“People now adopted early voting as a habit. They’ve gotten used to it,” Chervenak said, adding that candidates have also honed messaging to voters encouraging them to vote early.
Despite higher voter turnout this year, political analyst Ron Faucheux noted that the share of voters who went to the polls is still far lower than those who didn’t.
“Turnout continues to be lower than you would think it should be, even though yesterday’s election represented an improvement over where it was,” said Faucheux. “That’s still 60% of people who didn’t vote — that’s an awful lot of people.”
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