1994 New Orleans mayoral election

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1994 New Orleans mayoral election
Flag of New Orleans, Louisiana.svg
  1990 February 5, 1994 (first round)
March 5, 1994 (runoff)
1998  
  MarcMorialNatUrbanLeage (cropped).jpg 3x4.svg Mayor Mitch Landrieu 2010.jpg
Candidate Marc Morial Donald Mintz Mitch Landrieu
Party Democratic Democratic Democratic
First round49,604
32.48%
56,305
36.87%
14,689
9.62%
Runoff93,094
54.5%
77,730
45.5
Eliminated

 
Candidate Sherman Copelin Ken Carter
Party Democratic Democratic
First round11,731
7.68%
10,818
7.08%
RunoffEliminatedEliminated

Mayor before election

Sidney Barthelemy
Democratic

Elected mayor

Marc Morial
Democratic

The New Orleans mayoral election of 1994 was held on March 5, 1994 and resulted in the election of Marc Morial as Mayor of New Orleans.

Contents

Background

Elections in Louisiana—with the exception of U.S. presidential elections—follow a variation of the open primary system. 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. In this election, the first round was held on February 5, 1994, and the runoff was held on March 5, 1994.

Candidates

Campaign

Given that incumbent mayor Sidney Barthelemy was barred by the city charter from running for a third term, the 1994 mayoral race was seen as one of the most wide-open races in years, with a number of high-profile candidates running. Mintz began his campaign shortly after his loss to Barthelemy in 1990, and remained a front-runner throughout the lengthy campaign. After months of speculation, Dutch Morial's widow Sybil Morial decided not to run; her son, Marc Morial then entered the race as the candidate of the Morial family's LIFE organization. After Mitch Landrieu entered the race, much of the election coverage focused on the battle between two sons of former mayors.

The most prominent political issue of the campaign was New Orleans's drastically worsening crime problem, but the two leading candidates - Morial and Mintz - had similar positions on most issues. Rather than a focus on issues, the bitterly contested campaign saw a number of personal attacks, including rumors of Marc Morial's drug use. The runoff campaign was dominated by allegations that a senior campaign worker for Mintz had distributed racist fliers which questioned the religion and sexual orientation of various candidates.

Results

Results of first round of voting, February 5 [1]

CandidateParty affiliationVotes receivedPercentage of votes cast
Donald Mintz Democrat56,30536.87%
Marc Morial Democrat49,60432.48%
Mitch Landrieu Democrat14,6899.62%
Sherman Copelin Democrat11,7317.68%
Ken Carter Democrat10,8187.08%
Lambert Boissiere, Jr.Democrat5,4663.58%
Roy Raspanti Other3,7402.45%
Arthur P. Jacobs Democrat1310.09%
Julius "Chip" Leahman Democrat1170.08%
Jerome E. Slade Other1010.07%

Results of runoff, March 5 [1]

CandidateParty affiliationVotes receivedPercentage of votes cast
Marc Morial Democrat93,09454.5%
Donald Mintz Democrat77,73045.5%

References

  1. 1 2 "Voter Portal". Louisiana Secretary of State. Retrieved April 20, 2020.

Sources

Preceded by
1990 mayoral election
New Orleans mayoral elections Succeeded by
1998 mayoral election