NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans voters on Saturday are picking a new mayor to replace two-term incumbent LaToya Cantrell, whose indictment on corruption charges has left a wide field of candidates promising change to city hall.
It is the first of several high-profile mayoral races in the coming weeks in the U.S., including elections in New York and Detroit in November.
The election also comes as President Donald Trump has suggested that New Orleans could be one of his next targets to send the National Guard to fight crime. Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has asked for a deployment but the Trump administration has yet to make an announcement on the request.
More than 10 mayoral hopefuls in New Orleans are vying to succeed Cantrell, a Democrat, who cannot run again because of term limits. She’s also kept a low profile since federal prosecutors in August accused her of a yearslong scheme to hide a romantic relationship with her former bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie.
Cantrell has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, fraud and obstruction. Prosecutors say Cantrell and Vappie went on more than a dozen trips, including wine-tasting at vineyards, billing taxpayers for personal time together and later seeking to cover-up the evidence.
She’s far from the first city official indicted on corruption charges. Former Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison for bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax crimes stemming from his two terms as mayor from 2002 to 2010.
Most of the mayoral candidates have largely framed their messages around restoring stability to a tumultuous city hall.
Among the leading contenders to succeed Cantrell are Helena Moreno, the city council’s vice president and a former television reporter, who has raised more than $3.4 million, the most money in the race. State Sen. Royce Duplessis and veteran city councilman Oliver Thomas have also raised large sums. Thomas served 37 months in prison after pleading guilty in 2007 to accepting bribes.
Any candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote will win outright, otherwise the top two candidates will advance to a runoff on Nov. 15.
Moreno, the daughter of a petrochemical industry executive whose family moved to the U.S. from Mexico during her childhood, has campaigned on a platform of improving public safety, city services and economic development. Thomas has said he will focus on representing underserved communities, while Duplessis has directed appeals to Black voters in a majority-Black city and positioned himself as an outsider who would fix what he describes as a dysfunctional municipal government.
Also on the ballot is Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson, who oversaw the jail where 10 inmates brazenly escaped in May and is seeking re-election. The final escapee, convicted murder Derrick Groves, was captured in Atlanta earlier this week. Challengers have lined up against Hutson, whose management of the jail has been broadly criticized.
And a typically sleepy race for clerk of criminal court has become contentious and drawn attention beyond New Orleans.
Challenger Calvin Duncan spent nearly 30 years in a Louisiana prison for a murder conviction before he was released in 2011 after he obtained new evidence of his innocence. Duncan said he fought for decades to obtain the records that helped secure his freedom and hopes to improve the city’s criminal court records system.
But incumbent clerk Darren Lombard and Louisiana’s attorney general have asserted that Duncan was not exonerated because of a plea deal he accepted. In 2021, his convictions were vacated by a judge, and he is listed in the National Registry of Exonerations, an archive of wrongful convictions run by several universities.
By JACK BROOK
Associated Press/Report for America
