Nagin, a former cable television executive who ran as a political outsider four years ago, overcame withering criticism of his performance in the months since the Aug. 29 storm. Acknowledging that the effort to restore basic municipal services has been painfully slow, Nagin blamed the lack of progress on a failure of state and federal government to come to the aid of a city reeling from the worst urban natural disaster in American history.

Based upon the information supplied by GCR, Nagin received 52.35% of the vote compared to Mitch Landrieu’s 47.65%. Of the 113,591 votes were cast, fifty-five percent of the vote was African American , and forty-five percent of the voters were white and others. Nagin received 59,460 votes and Landrieu collected 54,131 votes.

Surprisingly to some, the turnout for the RunOff actually exceeded the vote of the primary.

The election results were a real political mixed-bag.

Democrat Shelly Midura defeated Republican incumbent Jay Batt in Council District A, yet white Democrat challenger, Stacy Head ousted black City Council Woman Rene Gill Pratt in District B, black James Carter topped white Kristin Palmer in District C and black legislator Arthur Morrell beat white Nick Varrecchio in Clerk of Criminal Court.

Obviously, some of the black winners received the benefit of the 55% black vote, yet, in some races, the electorate were not influenced by race.

Even more strange, C. Ray Nagin specifically thanked Republican President Bush for the Bush administration’s efforts in fulfilling his September promise, yet Jay Batt, a Republican did not win in his race.

The election will certainly be on for the text books as a Hurricane named Katrina made history out of large parts of New Orleans.
Here is the complete results of the election from the Secretary of State’s Office using the GCR information and maps.