New Orleans mayoral election heads to run-off vote

NEW ORLEANS -- The race to guide the city of New Orleans through one of the biggest urban reconstruction projects in U.S. history -- rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina -- was whittled to two familiar candidates: Mayor Ray Nagin and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu.\nNagin earned a comfortable lead Saturday with 38 percent or 41,489 votes, but short of the majority needed to secure a second term as mayor without the May 20 runoff. Landrieu had 29 percent, or 31,499 votes. Nonprofit executive Ron Forman followed with 17 percent, 18,734 votes, and 19 other candidates trailed far behind.\nThe municipal leadership will make key decisions about where and what to rebuild in a city where whole neighborhoods remain uninhabitable. Despite those stakes, turnout was low -- roughly a third of those eligible.\nPolitical and demographic analyst Elliott Stonecipher said the low turnout was disappointing, but it may actually reflect how few people intend to return to the city.\n"I'm still in the camp personally disheartened with the turnout," he said Sunday. "There was certainly nothing in what happened last night that is broadly encouraging."\nOf the city's 297,000 registered voters, tens of thousands are spread out across the United States. More than 20,000 cast ballots early 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 such evacuee havens as Houston, Dallas and Atlanta.\nNagin said the results showed voters had confidence in his leadership and were not swayed by the critics who panned his response after Hurricane Katrina and his verbal gaffes since then.\n"It's wonderful," he said. "It says a lot about how the public is a lot smarter than they get credit for. I think this is shocking some people."\nLandrieu, flanked by his father, Moon Landrieu, the last white mayor of New Orleans, said his showing was testament to the unity the city needs after a storm that put all of New Orleans "literally in the same boat."\n"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," he said. "We will speak with one voice and we will have one future."\nRace has become a key factor in the election. Less than half the city's pre-Katrina population of 455,000 have returned, and civil rights activists note that most of those scattered outside the city are black. Prior to the storm, the city was more than two-thirds black; it has not had a white mayor since 1978 when Moon Landrieu left office.\nThe Rev. Jesse Jackson has said he plans to challenge the election outcome in court regardless of the winner, arguing displaced voters were disenfranchised because they weren't allowed to vote in polling places in such adopted cities as Houston, Dallas and Atlanta.\nOf the ballots cast prior to Saturday's election, about two-thirds were cast by black voters, but analysts caution the numbers may not reflect overall turnout. The racial breakdown of the full vote was not immediately released.\nAssociated Press writers Rukmini Callimachi, Errin Haines, Brett Martel and Hank Ackerman contributed to this report.