Louisiana gubernatorial election, 2007
Encyclopedia
The Louisiana gubernatorial election of 2007 was held on October 20. The filing deadline for candidates was September 6. On the day of the election, all 12 candidates competed in an open jungle primary
. With all precincts reporting, Bobby Jindal
won the election with 54%.
, with the exception of U.S. presidential elections (and congressional
races beginning in 2008), follow a variation of the open primary
system called the jungle primary
. Candidates of any and all parties are listed on one ballot; voters need not limit themselves to the candidates of one party. Unless one candidate takes more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a run-off election is then held between the top two candidates, who may in fact be members of the same party. This scenario occurred in the 7th District congressional race in 1996, when Democrats Chris John
and Hunter Lundy made the runoff for the open seat, and in 1999, when Republicans Suzanne Haik Terrell
and Woody Jenkins
made the runoff for Commissioner of Elections.
. In November 2006, Blanco had an approval rating of 39%, and she had encountered further political setbacks since November.
In December 2006, Blanco called a special session of the Louisiana State Legislature which she intended to use to dispense $2.1 billion worth of tax cuts, teacher raises, road projects and other spending programs. Legislators allied with Blanco attempted to lift a spending cap imposed by the state constitution, but Republican lawmakers defeated Blanco’s spending measures. The high-profile defeat further eroded Blanco’s political reputation.
By late 2006 and early 2007, Blanco was facing increasingly heated accusations of delays and incompetence in administering the Road Home Program, a state-run program which Blanco had set up following Katrina in order to distribute federal aid money to Katrina victims for damage to their homes. By January 2007, fewer than 250 of an estimated 100,000 applicants had received payments from the program, and many of the payments were apparently based on assessments which grossly undervalued the cost of damage to homes.
By January 2007, the first opinion polls of the campaign showed Blanco trailing expected opponent Bobby Jindal by over 20 percentage points. Facing an upcoming re-election campaign with greatly reduced popularity, Blanco began her campaign by making repeated public criticisms of the administration of President George W. Bush
in January 2007. Noting that Bush neglected to mention Gulf Coast reconstruction in his 2007 State of the Union Address
, Blanco called for a bipartisan Congressional investigation into the conduct of the Bush administration following Katrina, to determine whether partisan politics played a role in the slow response to the storm. This call followed comments by disgraced former Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) director Michael D. Brown
, who claimed that the White House had planned to upstage Blanco by federalizing the National Guard in the days following the storm. Blanco also repeated accusations that Mississippi received preferential treatment because its governor, Haley Barbour
, is a Republican.
lobbyist John Breaux
would announce his candidacy. However, controversy emerged as to whether Breaux would meet the residency requirements to run for Governor as he had listed his primary address in Maryland
since 2005 and was registered to vote there.
On March 20, 2007, Blanco announced that she would not be running for re-election. She stated that removing herself from the campaign would allow her to focus the remainder of her term on Louisiana’s recovery without the distraction of campaigning for re-election. But her announcement came after weeks of growing calls from members of the Louisiana Democratic party for her to step aside and allow a more popular candidate to face Jindal.
On March 29, John Breaux made his first Louisiana public appearance since speculation began concerning his potential candidacy. Breaux said that he intended to run, and would announce his candidacy as soon as Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti
, a Democrat, gave a formal legal opinion on whether Breaux was eligible to run. At issue was the clause in the Louisiana constitution which states that a candidate for governor must be a 'citizen' of the State of Louisiana; what constitutes a citizen is not defined. The state Republican party began running advertisements attacking Breaux as a resident of Maryland.
On April 13, Breaux released a statement that he would not be running for governor. Attorney General Foti had declined to issue an opinion on Breaux's eligibility, stating it was an issue for the courts to decide. Breaux stated that he did not want the issue of eligibility to overshadow his campaign, as a court challenge would not occur until September.
On April 17, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu
also declined to run leaving the field very open on the Democratic side. Due to the lack of a high-profile Democratic candidate, party leaders approached Republican State Senator Walter Boasso
about switching parties; Boasso formally switched to the Democratic Party on April 26.
Jungle primary
A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for elected office run in the same primary regardless of political party. Under this system, the top two candidates who receive the most votes advance to the next round, as in a runoff election...
. With all precincts reporting, Bobby Jindal
Bobby Jindal
Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party....
won the election with 54%.
Background
Elections in LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, with the exception of U.S. presidential elections (and congressional
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
races beginning in 2008), follow a variation of the open primary
Open primary
An open primary is a primary election that does not require voters to be affiliated with a political party in order to vote for partisan candidates. In a traditional open primary, voters may select one party's ballot and vote for that party's nomination. As in a closed primary, the highest voted...
system called the jungle primary
Jungle primary
A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for elected office run in the same primary regardless of political party. Under this system, the top two candidates who receive the most votes advance to the next round, as in a runoff election...
. Candidates of any and all parties are listed on one ballot; voters need not limit themselves to the candidates of one party. Unless one candidate takes more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a run-off election is then held between the top two candidates, who may in fact be members of the same party. This scenario occurred in the 7th District congressional race in 1996, when Democrats Chris John
Chris John
Christopher Charles "Chris" John is American politician who was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1997 to 2005, representing Louisiana's 7th congressional district.-Early life:...
and Hunter Lundy made the runoff for the open seat, and in 1999, when Republicans Suzanne Haik Terrell
Suzanne Haik Terrell
Suzanne Haik Terrell is a Louisiana lawyer who failed in a high-profile Republican bid for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and for state attorney general in 2003. She was the state's last commissioner of elections, having served from 2000 to 2004. In 2005, President George W...
and Woody Jenkins
Woody Jenkins
Louis Elwood "Woody" Jenkins is a newspaper editor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972–2000 and waged three unsuccessful races for the United States Senate....
made the runoff for Commissioner of Elections.
Democratic
- Walter BoassoWalter BoassoWalter Joseph Boasso is a wealthy businessman and former Democratic state senator from Chalmette, the seat of St. Bernard Parish in south Louisiana. He was defeated in a bid for governor in the October 20, 2007, jungle primary. Boasso won 47 percent in his own St. Bernard Parish, his sole...
- Elected to the State Senate in 2003, representing St. Bernard ParishSt. Bernard Parish, LouisianaSt. Bernard Parish is a parish located southeast of New Orleans in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Chalmette, the largest city in the parish. As of 2000, its population was 67,229. It has been ranked the fastest-growing county in the United States from 2007 to 2008 by the U.S....
and Plaquemines Parish. He is also president and CEO of Boasso America Corp., a network of shipping container facilities, and has served on the Port of New Orleans Board of Commissioners. He has received a reputation as a conservative, pro-business legislator. After Hurricane KatrinaHurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, Boasso achieved prominence as one for the state’s leading advocates for consolidation and reform of the state’s Levee Boards. He switched to the Democratic Party on April 26, 2007.
- Foster CampbellFoster CampbellFoster L. Campbell, Jr. , is a Democratic member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, a former 26-year member of the Louisiana State Senate, and an unsuccessful candidate for governor in the October 20, 2007, jungle primary. Campbell polled 161,425 votes and won two parishes: Red River and...
- Louisiana Public Service CommissionLouisiana Public Service CommissionLouisiana Public Service Commission is an independent regulatory agency which manages public utilities and motor carriers in Louisiana. The commission has five elected members chosen in single-member districts for staggered six-year terms...
er for District 5, 2002-Present; St. Senator, 1976-2002. Campbell is a cattle farmer and owner of an insurance agency from Bossier Parish. As a state senator and as a Public Service Commissioner, Campbell pushed to regulate and lower utility rates. A centerpiece of his populist campaign is a proposal to tax foreign oil refined in Louisiana and use the proceeds to eliminate personal income tax.
- Vinny Mendoza - KennerKenner, LouisianaKenner is a city in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, United States, and a suburb of New Orleans. The population was 66,702 at the 2010 census....
resident. Veteran of the Korean WarKorean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
and has run for many state offices.
- Hardy Parkerson - Lake CharlesLake Charles, LouisianaLake Charles is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Located in Calcasieu Parish, a major cultural, industrial, and educational center in the southwest region of the state, and one of the most important in...
attorney. He ran as a self-described "Ronald Reagan Conservative Democratic, Family Forum, Christian-Coalition, States' Rights, anti-abortion candidate."
- Mary Volentine Smith - Retired Hairdresser from WinnsboroWinnsboro, LouisianaWinnsboro is a city in and the parish seat of Franklin Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of July 2009, the estimated city population was 4,377...
.
Republicans
- Bobby JindalBobby JindalPiyush "Bobby" Jindal is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party....
- A U.S. CongressmanUnited States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
representing Louisiana's First Congressional DistrictLouisiana's 1st congressional districtLouisiana's 1st congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The district comprises mostly land on the North Shore and South Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, although it also contains areas west of Lake Pontchartrain. The district includes some or all of the...
. Jindal previously served as Louisiana's Secretary of Health and Hospitals from 1996 to 1998 and President of the University of Louisiana SystemUniversity of Louisiana SystemThe University of Louisiana System is one of four public university systems in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Its headquarters are in the Claiborne Building in Baton Rouge.-History and diversification:...
from 1999 to 2001, and was appointed by President George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation from 2001 to 2003. Jindal ran against Kathleen Blanco for governor in 2003, and was narrowly defeated, having received 48% of the vote. Jindal currently has raised $5.1 million - putting him second in the campaign finance arena as of the April reporting period.
Libertarian
- T. Lee Horne, IIIT. Lee Horne, IIIT. Lee Horne, III ran as the Libertarian candidate in the 2007 Louisiana gubernatorial race and is the chair of the Libertarian Party of Louisiana-Early life:...
- real estate salesman from FranklinFranklin, LouisianaFranklin is a city in and the parish seat of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 8,354 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Morgan City Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
Independent
- Belinda Alexandrenko - LafayetteLafayette, LouisianaLafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...
resident who previously ran for Governor in 1995 & 1999. In 1999, she received 0.69% of the vote and did not run in 2003.
- Sheldon Forest - MauriceMaurice, LouisianaMaurice is a village in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 642 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Abbeville Micropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
resident.
- Anthony "Tony G" Gentile - oil refinery supervisor from MandevilleMandeville, LouisianaMandeville is a city in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,421 in 2008. Mandeville is located on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, south of Interstate 12. It is across the lake from the city of New Orleans and its southshore suburbs...
- John GeorgesJohn GeorgesJohn Georges is a New Orleans, Louisiana, businessman who formerly served on the Louisiana Board of Regents, the body which supervises higher education in his native state....
- Georges is a wealthy New Orleans businessman with investments in gaming and grocery businesses.
- Jim NicholsJim Nichols-Coaching career:He was the first head football coach for the Faulkner Eagles located in Montgomery, Alabama and he held that position for 2 seasons he also is an albino black male, from 2007 until 2008. His coaching record at Faulkner was 3 wins and 18 losses...
- DonaldsonvilleDonaldsonville, LouisianaDonaldsonville is a city in and the parish seat of Ascension Parish, Louisiana, United States, along the west bank of the Mississippi River. The population was 7,605 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:Acadians began to settle in the area in...
resident who previously ran for Governor in 1995.
Blanco's faltering popularity
Originally planning to run for re-election, the incumbent governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, entered the election year with a significant erosion in her level of popular support, due in large part to perceptions of inadequate performance in the aftermath of Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
. In November 2006, Blanco had an approval rating of 39%, and she had encountered further political setbacks since November.
In December 2006, Blanco called a special session of the Louisiana State Legislature which she intended to use to dispense $2.1 billion worth of tax cuts, teacher raises, road projects and other spending programs. Legislators allied with Blanco attempted to lift a spending cap imposed by the state constitution, but Republican lawmakers defeated Blanco’s spending measures. The high-profile defeat further eroded Blanco’s political reputation.
By late 2006 and early 2007, Blanco was facing increasingly heated accusations of delays and incompetence in administering the Road Home Program, a state-run program which Blanco had set up following Katrina in order to distribute federal aid money to Katrina victims for damage to their homes. By January 2007, fewer than 250 of an estimated 100,000 applicants had received payments from the program, and many of the payments were apparently based on assessments which grossly undervalued the cost of damage to homes.
By January 2007, the first opinion polls of the campaign showed Blanco trailing expected opponent Bobby Jindal by over 20 percentage points. Facing an upcoming re-election campaign with greatly reduced popularity, Blanco began her campaign by making repeated public criticisms of the administration of President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
in January 2007. Noting that Bush neglected to mention Gulf Coast reconstruction in his 2007 State of the Union Address
2007 State of the Union Address
The 2007 State of the Union address was a speech given by United States President George W. Bush on Tuesday, January 23, 2007, at 9:13 P.M. EST. The speech was given in front of a joint session of Congress, presided over by Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Vice President...
, Blanco called for a bipartisan Congressional investigation into the conduct of the Bush administration following Katrina, to determine whether partisan politics played a role in the slow response to the storm. This call followed comments by disgraced former Federal Emergency Management Agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...
(FEMA) director Michael D. Brown
Michael D. Brown
Michael DeWayne Brown was the first Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response , a division of the Department of Homeland Security . This position is generally referred to as the director or administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . He was appointed in January 2003 by...
, who claimed that the White House had planned to upstage Blanco by federalizing the National Guard in the days following the storm. Blanco also repeated accusations that Mississippi received preferential treatment because its governor, Haley Barbour
Haley Barbour
Haley Reeves Barbour is an American Republican politician currently serving as the 63rd Governor of Mississippi. He gained a national spotlight in August 2005 after Mississippi was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Barbour won re-election as Governor in 2007...
, is a Republican.
Democrats drop/decline
Beginning in February 2007, speculation grew among Louisiana political commentators that former U.S. Senator and current Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
lobbyist John Breaux
John Breaux
John Berlinger Breaux is a former United States senator from Louisiana who served from 1987 until 2005. He was also a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1972 to 1987. He was considered one of the more conservative national legislators from the Democratic Party...
would announce his candidacy. However, controversy emerged as to whether Breaux would meet the residency requirements to run for Governor as he had listed his primary address in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
since 2005 and was registered to vote there.
On March 20, 2007, Blanco announced that she would not be running for re-election. She stated that removing herself from the campaign would allow her to focus the remainder of her term on Louisiana’s recovery without the distraction of campaigning for re-election. But her announcement came after weeks of growing calls from members of the Louisiana Democratic party for her to step aside and allow a more popular candidate to face Jindal.
On March 29, John Breaux made his first Louisiana public appearance since speculation began concerning his potential candidacy. Breaux said that he intended to run, and would announce his candidacy as soon as Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti
Charles Foti
Charles Carmen Foti, Jr. , is a former Democratic Attorney General of the U.S. state of Louisiana, United States. He served as his state's chief legal officer for a single term from 2004 to 2008....
, a Democrat, gave a formal legal opinion on whether Breaux was eligible to run. At issue was the clause in the Louisiana constitution which states that a candidate for governor must be a 'citizen' of the State of Louisiana; what constitutes a citizen is not defined. The state Republican party began running advertisements attacking Breaux as a resident of Maryland.
On April 13, Breaux released a statement that he would not be running for governor. Attorney General Foti had declined to issue an opinion on Breaux's eligibility, stating it was an issue for the courts to decide. Breaux stated that he did not want the issue of eligibility to overshadow his campaign, as a court challenge would not occur until September.
On April 17, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu
Mitch Landrieu
Mitchell Joseph "Mitch" Landrieu is the Mayor of New Orleans, former Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, and a member of the Landrieu family. Landrieu is a member of the Democratic Party and a Roman Catholic. He is the son of former New Orleans mayor and Secretary of the United States Department of...
also declined to run leaving the field very open on the Democratic side. Due to the lack of a high-profile Democratic candidate, party leaders approached Republican State Senator Walter Boasso
Walter Boasso
Walter Joseph Boasso is a wealthy businessman and former Democratic state senator from Chalmette, the seat of St. Bernard Parish in south Louisiana. He was defeated in a bid for governor in the October 20, 2007, jungle primary. Boasso won 47 percent in his own St. Bernard Parish, his sole...
about switching parties; Boasso formally switched to the Democratic Party on April 26.
Republican fundraising efforts
As of the April 2007 reports, two Republican candidates have emerged with the largest campaign warchests in Louisiana history - Georges with $5.5 million cash on hand and Jindal who has received $5 million in campaign financing. The financial strength of the two Republicans presented a tremendous challenge to recruiting a strong candidate for the Democratic party. Georges, however, later left the Louisiana GOP and registered as an independent for the gubernatorial race.Democratic attack on Jindal's religious writings
An ad campaign by the Louisiana Democratic Party launched in late August, 2007 which attacked Bobby Jindal on the basis of supposed inflammatory remarks made about Protestantism. The ad was solely aired in the largely Protestant central and northern districts of the state. The ad drew attention to essays Jindal had written over a decade previously discussing his Catholic faith and conversion. One such essay titled "How Catholicism Is Different - The Catholic Church Isn't Just Another Denomination" was published in 1996 in the New Oxford Review.. Jindal said about the ad, "They're absolute lies. We're not talking about an exaggeration". A letter from the campaign went further to say "each claim made in the advertisement distorts Mr. Jindal's positions with false and grossly distorted statements."Polling
| Source | Date | Boasso (D) | Campbell (D) | Georges (I) | Jindal (R) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loyola Insititute of Politics | Oct 2-8, 2007 | 9% | 7% | 9% | 50% | |||||||||
| Southeastern Louisiana University | Oct 1-7, 2007 | 10% | 6% | 9% | 46% | |||||||||
| Kitchens Group | Sep 4, 2007 | 11% | 8% | 7% | 51% | Nagin (D) | ||||||||
| Verne Kennedy | Aug 23, 2007 | 11% | 3% | 8% | 50% | 7% | ||||||||
| Southern Media and Opinion Research | Aug 3-6, 2007 | 10% | 3% | 2% | 60% | 11% | ||||||||
| Southern Media and Opinion Research | Aug 3-6, 2007 | 14% | 4% | 1% | 63% | N/A | ||||||||
| Anzalone Liszt Research | Jul 8-12, 2007 | 21% | 6% | 1% | 52% | N/A | ||||||||
| Anzalone Liszt Research | May 7-9, 2007 | 6% | 9% | 1% | 62% | N/A | Bernhard (D) | Breaux (D) | Ieyoub (D) | Kennedy (D) | Landrieu (D) | |||
| Verne Kennedy | Mar 29 - Apr 3, 2007 | 1% | 2% | 10% | 39% | N/A | 0% | 23% | 1% | 4% | 5% | |||
| Southern Media and Opinion Research | Mar 19, 2007 | 2% | 5% | N/A | 56% | N/A | N/A | 26% | N/A | N/A | N/A | Blanco (D) | ||
| Southern Media and Opinion Research | Mar 19, 2007 | 2% | 4% | N/A | 59% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 24% | ||
| Southern Media and Opinion Research | Jan 18, 2007 | N/A | 6% | N/A | 58% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 31% | Melancon (D) | Vitter (R) |
| Verne Kennedy | Oct 24-30, 2006 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 52% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 9% | 20% | 3% | 9% |
| Verne Kennedy | Mar 17-19, 2006 | 1% | 1% | N/A | 39% | N/A | 1% | 17% | 2% | N/A | N/A | 16% | N/A | 10% |
| Verne Kennedy | Feb 7-15, 2006 | N/A | 1% | 23% | 36% | N/A | 1% | N/A | N/A | N/A | 7% | 16% | N/A | 5% |
Results
See also
- U.S. gubernatorial elections, 2007
- State of LouisianaLouisianaLouisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
- Governors of Louisiana
External links
Democratic
- Walter Boasso for Governor web site
- Foster Campbell for Governor web site
- Vinny Mendoza for Governor web site