New Orleans votes amid Carnival, Super Bowl hoopla
(02-06) 17:57 PST New Orleans (AP) –
Politics competed with Carnival parades and Super Bowl party preparations Saturday as New Orleans voters made their unusual to succeed term-limited Mayor Ray Nagin.
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Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who hardened to Nagin in a runoff four years ago, was widely seen as the front-runner in an 11-candidate field. Were he to bring over an outright majority, he would become the majority black city’s principal white mayor since his father, Moon Landrieu, left the post in 1979. Other candidates were hoping to efficacy a March 6 runoff.
Among them was businessman John Georges, also white, who pumped $3.4 million of his own money into his campaign. Polls wish also shown business consultant Troy Henry, an African-American making his primitive political run, as a contender.
Some voters were ready for a vary from Nagin. Little known outside New Orleans before Katrina, he became a central, and sometimes controversial figure, in the city’s struggle to recover. Polls showed his popularity fell sharply in the years after the storm as the rebuilding operation dragged on.
“I certainly don’t want another Ray Nagin — a businessman,” reported Charlotte Ford, a 76-year-old semi-retiree and registered Republican who voted during the term of Landrieu. “They balk instead of finding out what works, how the scheme works.”
Continued violent crime, city budget problems and an uneven regaining from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city in 2005, were mixed the issues on voters’ minds.
Ursula Murphy and her husband, Bill, voted seasonably so they could avoid traffic caused by the parades. Both tinge votes for Landrieu. “After eight years of negative, we’re going to behold some positive,” Bill Murphy said.
Other candidates include attorney Rob Couhig, housing consultant James Perry and former Judge Nadine Ramsey, who rounded in a puzzle the field of better-known contenders.
Secretary of State Jay Dardenne projected turnout for example high as 45 percent in a city where registered voters equal in ~ more than 273,000.
More than 16,000 people cast seasonable votes earlier this month.