NEW ORLEANS – Mayor Ray Nagin and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu will compete in a May runoff following Saturday’s mayoral election, a tricky experiment of modern-day democracy that gave voters scattered by Hurricane Katrina a say in the city’s future.
With 91 percent of precincts reporting in the nonpartisan primary, Nagin topped all candidates with 38 percent, or 28,123 votes, but fell short of the majority he needed to win a second term and avoid the May 20 runoff.
Landrieu had 29 percent, or 21,154 votes. Nonprofit executive Ron Forman followed with 17 percent, or 12,650 votes, and 19 other candidates trailed far behind.
Landrieu cast his showing as a testament to the unity the city needs after Katrina, which he said put all of New Orleans “literally in the same boat.”
“Today in this great American city, African American and white, Hispanic and Vietnamese, almost in equal measure came forward to propel this campaign forward and loudly proclaim that we in New Orleans will be one people. We will speak with one voice, and we will have one future,” he said, flanked by his father, Moon Landrieu, the last white mayor of New Orleans in the late 1970s.
Nagin did not immediately make a statement.
Election officials said the voting was steady and unusually problem-free, and while they didn’t have complete numbers, the returns appeared low.
Of the city’s 297,000 registered voters, tens of thousands are spread out across the United States. More than 20,000 cast ballots by mail, fax or at satellite voting stations around the state, and thousands more made their way to 76 improvised polling stations. Some traveled by bus or in car caravans from Houston, Dallas and Atlanta.
“Let me tell you something: This is an important election,” said Gerald Miller, a 61-year-old stroke patient whose daughter was pushing her in a wheelchair. “We’re going to straighten this mess out.”
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