Louisiana gubernatorial election, 2007

Louisiana gubernatorial election, 2007
	Parish Results; Jindal: 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80%; Boasso: 40-50%; Georges: 30-40%; Contents Background ; Candidates ; Democratic ; Republicans ; Libertarian ; Independent ; Campaign ; Blanco's faltering popularity ; Democrats drop/decline ; Republican fundraising efforts ; Democratic attack on Jindal's religious writings ; Polling ; Results ; See also ; References ; External links ; Campaign sites ; Campbell: 30-40% 40–50%;
Governor before election; Kathleen Babineaux Blanco ; Democratic	Elected Governor; Bobby Jindal ; Republican

Last updated April 20, 2019

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%.^[1]

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is an American politician who was the 55th Governor of Louisiana between 2008 and 2016, and previously served as a U.S. Congressman and as the vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association.

Background

Elections in Louisiana, with the exception of U.S. presidential elections (and congressional races from 2008 until 2010), 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.

Louisiana is a state in the Deep South region of the South Central United States. It is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties. The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans.

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the Federal Government of the United States. The legislature consists of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Christopher Charles John, known as Chris John, is an American politician and lobbyist who from 1997 to 2005 served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana's 7th congressional district, since disbanded and merged into the 3rd district.

Candidates

Democratic

Walter Boasso – Elected to the State Senate in 2003, representing St. Bernard Parish 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 Katrina, 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 Campbell – Louisiana Public Service Commissioner 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 – Kenner resident. Veteran of the Korean War and has run for many state offices.
Hardy Parkerson – Lake Charles 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 Winnsboro.

Walter Joseph Boasso is an American businessman and Democratic former state senator from Chalmette, the seat of government of St. Bernard Parish in south Louisiana. He was defeated in a bid for governor in the October 20, 2007, nonpartisan blanket primary by the Republican Bobby Jindal. Boasso won 47 percent in his own St. Bernard Parish, his sole plurality showing in any of his state's sixty-four parishes. From 2004 to 2008, Boasso represented Senate District 1, which includes parts of Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and St. Tammany parishes, many of those areas having been devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana Parish in the United States

St. Bernard Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 35,897. The parish seat and largest community is Chalmette. The parish was formed in 1807.

Hurricane Katrina was an extremely destructive and deadly Category 5 hurricane that made landfall on Florida and Louisiana, particularly the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas, in August 2005, causing catastrophic damage from central Florida to eastern Texas. Subsequent flooding, caused largely as a result of fatal engineering flaws in the flood protection system known as levees around the city of New Orleans, precipitated most of the loss of lives. The storm was the third major hurricane of the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane on record to make landfall in the United States, behind only the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Republicans

Bobby Jindal – A U.S. Congressman representing Louisiana's First Congressional District. Jindal previously served as Louisiana's Secretary of Health and Hospitals from 1996 to 1998 and President of the University of Louisiana System from 1999 to 2001, and was appointed by President George W. Bush 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.

The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they compose the legislature of the United States.

Louisiana's 1st congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The district comprises land from the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain south to the Mississippi River delta.

The University of Louisiana System is the largest of the four public university systems in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Its headquarters are in the Claiborne Building in Baton Rouge.

Libertarian

T. Lee Horne, III – real estate salesman from Franklin

Franklin is a small city in and the parish seat of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 7,660 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Morgan City Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Independent

Belinda Alexandrenko – Lafayette 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 – Maurice resident.
Anthony "Tony G" Gentile – oil refinery supervisor from Mandeville
John Georges – Georges is a wealthy New Orleans businessman with investments in gaming and grocery businesses; owner of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate .
Jim Nichols – Donaldsonville resident who previously ran for governor in 1995.

Lafayette, Louisiana City in Louisiana, United States

Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, located along the Vermilion River in the southwestern part of the state. The city of Lafayette is the fourth-largest in the state, with a population of 127,657 according to 2015 U.S. Census estimates. It is the principal city of the Lafayette, Louisiana Metropolitan Statistical Area, with a 2015 estimated population of 490,488. The larger trade area or Combined Statistical Area of Lafayette-Opelousas-Morgan City CSA was 627,146 in 2015. Its nickname is The Hub City.

Maurice 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.

Mandeville is a small city in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 11,560 at the 2010 census. 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. It is part of the New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner metropolitan area.

Campaign

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 Katrina. 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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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.^[4] 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.^[5]

Democrats drop/decline

Beginning in February 2007, speculation grew among Louisiana political commentators that former U.S. Senator and current Washington, D.C. lobbyist John Breaux would announce his candidacy.^[6]^[7]^[8] 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. ^[9]

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.^[10]

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.^[11] 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.^[12]

On April 17, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu also declined to run leaving the field very open on the Democratic side.^[13] Due to the lack of a high-profile Democratic candidate, party leaders approached Republican State Senator Walter Boasso about switching parties;^[14] Boasso formally switched to the Democratic Party on April 26.^[15]

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.^[12]

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.^[16] 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." ^[17]

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 ^{[ permanent dead link ]}	Feb 7-15, 2006	N/A	1%	23%	36%	N/A	1%	N/A	N/A	N/A	7%	16%	N/A	5%

Results

Parishes won by Gubernatorial Candidates in the October 20, 2007 Election.
Bobby Jindal (60)
Foster Campbell (2)
Walter Boasso (1)
John Georges (1) LAGovElection Oct07.png — Parishes won by Gubernatorial Candidates in the October 20, 2007 Election.
  Bobby Jindal (60)
  Foster Campbell (2)
  Walter Boasso (1)
  John Georges (1)

Louisiana gubernatorial election, 2007
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Bobby Jindal	699,672	53.91
	Democratic	Walter Boasso	226,364	17.44
	Independent	John Georges	186,800	14.39
	Democratic	Foster Campbell	161,425	12.44
	Democratic	Mary Volentine Smith	5,843	0.45
	Independent	Belinda Alexandrenko	4,782	0.37
	Independent	Anthony Gentile	3,369	0.36
	Libertarian	T. Lee Horne, III	2,639	0.20
	Independent	Sheldon Forest	2,319	0.18
	Democratic	M. V. "Vinny" Mendoza	2,076	0.16
	Democratic	Hardy Parkerson	1,661	0.13
	Independent	Arthur D. "Jim" Nichols	993	0.08
Majority			473,308	36.47%
Turnout			1,297,943
	Republican gain from Democratic		Swing

Preceded by 2003 gubernatorial election	Louisiana gubernatorial elections	Succeeded by 2011 gubernatorial election

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References

↑ Louisiana Secretary of State Retrieved October 21, 2007 Archived September 19, 2008, at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Barrow, Bill (2006-12-17). "Session debacle fuels GOP's resolve; some lawmakers decry partisanship". New Orleans Times-Picayune.
↑ Meitrodt, Jeffrey (2007-01-28). "Understaffed and Overwhelmed: The firm administering Louisiana's Road Home program has consistently underestimated the magnitude of the task, records show". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-05-03. Retrieved 2006-01-29.
↑ Hammer, David (2007-01-25). "Blanco criticizes president's speech: Failure to mention Gulf Coast irks many". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-01-29.
↑ Walsh, Bill (2007-01-23). "Blanco calls for federal Katrina probe: Ex-director says White House tried to foil governor". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-01-29.
↑ Dubos, Clancy (2006-12-17). "Breaux ex Machina". Gambit Weekly.
↑ Cillizza, Chris (2007-02-23). "Breaux to the Rescue?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2006-01-26.
↑ Maginnis, John (2007-02-21). "Desperate Dems look to Breaux again". The New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
↑ Deslatte, Melinda (2007-02-22). "Breaux's residency questioned amid rumors of possible candidacy". Thibodaux Daily Comet. Retrieved 2007-02-26.
↑ Anderson, Ed (2007-03-21). "Blanco bows out of race". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-03-25. Retrieved 2007-03-21.
↑ Anderson, Ed (2007-03-30). "Breaux moves forward with campaign". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-03-30.
1 2 Anderson, Ed (2007-04-13). "Breaux says he will not run for governor". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Retrieved 2007-04-13.
↑ Simpson, Doug (2007-04-17). "Mitch Landrieu declines La. governor bid". Associated Press. Retrieved 2007-04-17. ^{[ dead link ]}
↑ Anderson, Ed (2007-04-21). "Demos hunt for big name candidate". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-04-21.
↑ Anderson, Ed (2007-04-27). "Boasso makes switch to Democrats". New Orleans Times-Picayune. Retrieved 2007-04-27.
↑ Bobby, Jindal (Dec 1996). "How Catholicism Is Different – The Catholic Church Isn't Just Another Denomination". New Oxford Review.
↑ Moller, Jan (2007-08-22). "Jindal wants religious insult claims dropped". New Orleans Times-Picayune . Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2007-08-22.

External links

Louisiana Secretary of State ^{[ permanent dead link ]}