Whiplash Nagin Surprises in Big Easy Election

Well, Nagin did far better than I thought possible. And his former supporters avoided him like the plague while African American voters came to his defense and voted for him in great numbers.

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 mayoral runoff election.

The black incumbent, who received most of his support from white voters in the 2002 election, garnered less than 10 percent of the vote Saturday in predominantly white precincts, according to GCR & Associates Inc., a consulting firm analyzing demographic data for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority.

But Nagin, who offended many white voters in January when he suggested God wanted New Orleans to remain a "chocolate city," saw black voters rush to his defense. He received 65 percent or more of the vote in predominantly black neighborhoods, the consultant found.

Landrieu, who is white, finished with 29 percent of the overall vote to Nagin's 38 percent. He finished second in black neighborhoods to Nagin and second in white neighborhoods to third-place finisher Ron Forman, bolstering his claims that he can help bring together diverse groups to help New Orleans emerge from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina.

Landrieu said Sunday that the number of voters who chose candidates other than Nagin demonstrated that voters want change. "This city, this great city, calls for change," he said.

Nagin, a former cable executive seeking his second term as mayor, said his overall win is an endorsement of his performance and his plans for the city's future.

"I just feel we're on the right track, and people have verified that to me," he said.

The numbers suggest it will be a serious challenge for Nagin to broaden his support in time for the May 20 runoff.

"His one shot is to get enough of the whites who liked him four years ago to like him again," said political analyst Elliott Stonecipher.

Those votes are all the more important because the city is whiter than it was before Katrina hit Aug. 29: Fewer than half the city's 455,000 residents have returned, most of those displaced are black. Only about 20,000 evacuees participated in Saturday's election by absentee ballot, fax and satellite stations, although an unknown number returned to the city to vote in person.

So, we're going to have a runoff election in May between Ray Nagin and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. Nagin has done an incredibly poor job considering his backtracking and reversals on key rebuilding issues, not to mention his poor judgment surrounding the evacuation of New Orleans.

This much seems clear, though: The out-of-town vote proved to be less important than some analysts initially believed it would be. Turnout appeared to be remarkably high in precincts that remained dry after Katrina, and lower in those that didn't. And while thousands of residents indeed drove long distances to the polls on a picture-perfect day, the armadas of buses some predicted would ferry voters from Houston, Atlanta and other hubs never materialized in great numbers.

A clue to the diminished significance of the diaspora came at forums held in those hubs and others. Though many candidates traveled to out-of-town debates, few voters attended most of them. And perhaps as a result, candidates didn't pour money into out-of-state media buys at the rates some had expected.

The campaign was infused with a racial subtext, in part because those displaced by the Aug. 29 storm were disproportionately African-American. But despite fervent pleas by some prominent black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Legislature refused to set up satellite polling places in cities such as Houston, Atlanta and Jackson, Miss., where tens of thousands of evacuees are living.

The mayoral primary and runoff originally were scheduled for Feb. 4 and March 4, but Gov. Kathleen Blanco postponed the elections after Katrina left more than half the city's polling sites unusable and forced voters and poll commissioners to evacuate. The April 22 date was approved by U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle, who is black. And as late as Friday, Lemelle ruled that the measures taken to ensure a fair election Saturday met standards laid out in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Nonetheless, some black leaders have suggested the election was a ploy by the city's white power structure to "take back" City Hall, which since 1978 has been occupied by a black mayor. Nagin, the black incumbent, at times seemed to try to tap in to such anxieties, noting at an appearance in Houston that "very few" of his opponents "look like us."

It's an unfortunate decision on their part, but they're the ones who will have to live with that decision. However, given the need to rebuild many areas of New Orleans, taxpayers around the country will be on the hook for some of the mayor's decisions.