Nagin, Landrieu to compete in runoff
Fewer than half the city's pre-Katrina residents live in New Orleans now.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- In a complete reversal of support from four years ago, Mayor Ray Nagin scored heavily with black voters and was practically abandoned by whites as he and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu won spots in a runoff election for mayor of New Orleans.
Slightly more than half of the overall vote was attributed to black voters, who favored the top two candidates, according to a consulting firm analyzing demographic data for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority.
In predominantly white precincts, Nagin trailed behind several other candidates with less than 10 percent, according to GCR & amp; Associates Inc. In 2002, Nagin got most of his support from white voters.
Nagin will have to go back to some of the people who elected him last time and try to re-win their confidence for the May 20 runoff, said a political analyst Elliott Stonecipher.
Roughly one-third of the city's voters participated in Saturday's election, some traveling hundreds of miles to help decide who will lead one of the biggest urban reconstruction projects in U.S. history after Hurricane Katrina.
22 candidates
Nagin and Landrieu led a field of 22 candidates, which included a wide range of other choices, including business leaders, a lawyer and a minister. Yet voters, as they did in several other municipal races, chose two men already in the political spotlight.
The election, in which 36 percent of the 297,000 eligible voters participated, was an unprecedented experiment in democracy because fewer than half the city's pre-Katrina residents are currently living in New Orleans. That forced campaigning for the municipal election to go nationwide and led civil rights activists to question whether the election could be fair.
Political observers said it was difficult to characterize whether turnout was better or worse than expected because it was such an unusual election.
"It was normal, natural to expect some such expression" of frustration against current officeholders after Hurricane Katrina, Stonecipher said. "Instead, we got the opposite."
Nagin, a cable executive who first ran for office in 2002, said the results were an endorsement of his plans for the city's future and his previous four years in office.
Before the storm, Nagin, who is black, had been largely expected to easily win a second term.
Landrieu said Sunday the number of voters who chose candidates other than Nagin demonstrated that voters want change.
Both candidates will have to expand their voter base to win in May.
Landrieu, who has held office in Louisiana for nearly two decades and is the brother of Sen. Mary Landrieu, has trumpeted his ability to attract a diverse group of voters.
His father, Moon Landrieu, was the last white mayor of New Orleans in the 1970s but is well-liked in the black community for his decision to open high-ranking jobs to black professionals at city hall.
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