Austin Badon (D)
Term limited in 2015
District Map

2002 Senate Race (Runoff)
Mary Landrieu (D) 10,611 (90%)
Suzy Terrell (R) 1,127 (10%)

2003 Governors Race (Runoff)
Kathleen Blanco (D) 9,898 (79%)
“Bobby” Jindal (R) 2,677 (21%)

2004 Presidential Race
George W. Bush (R) 2,102 (12%)
John Kerry (D) 14,918 (87%)
Others 76 (1%)

2004 Senate Race
David Vitter (R) 1,935 (12%)
Chris John (D) 7,648 (47%)
Others 6,882 (41%)

2006 New Orleans Mayor Runoff
Mitch Landrieu (D) 1,846 (30%)
Ray Nagin (D) 4,272 (70%)

2006 Secretary of State Race
Jay Dardenne (R) 191 (14%)
Francis Heitmeier (D) 949 (69%)
Mike Francis (R) 44 (3%)
Mary Chehardy (R) 103 (7%)
Others 93 (7%)

2007 Governors Race
“Bobby” Jindal (R) 811 (15%)
Walter Boasso (D) 1,232 (23%)
John Georges (I) 2,848 (53%)
Foster Campbell (D) 472 (9%)
Others 60 (2%)

2007 Agriculture Commissioner Race
“Bob” Odom (D) 3,770 (75%)
Mike Strain (R) 544 (11%)
Wayne Carter (R) 380 (8%)
Don Johnson (R) 339 (7%)

House District 100 is located in New Orleans East in a compact area bounded roughly by Paris Road, Chef Menteur Highway, Crowder Road, and Lake Pontchartrain. It is an area that grew at a strong 6% rate before Hurricane Katrina; since then, it has lost a significant number of voters, and now has 3% less voters than it had before Katrina.

The solid African-American majority (88%, which is up from 84% several years ago) is uniform across the district – no precinct is less than 70% African-American. This majority also provides a secure base for Democrats. Republicans can only hope to get about 10% of the vote in contested statewide elections. Bobby Jindal did receive 21% of the vote, however, because Mayor Ray Nagin’s endorsement enabled him to receive a portion of the African-American vote. Without the endorsement in 2007, his share of the vote slipped to 15%.

There has actually been a fair amount of turnover in the district over the years. The last white representative here, Democrat Louis Ivon, was defeated by African-American Democrat David Armstrong 52-48% in the 1991 runoff thanks to years of racial change in New Orleans East. Rep. Armstrong left in the middle of his term, and was succeeded by Cynthia Willard-Lewis, who squelched Rep. Ivon’s attempted comeback with 53% of the vote in the 1993 runoff. Rep. Willard-Lewis was comfortably re-elected in 1995 and 1999, and resigned in 2000 upon her election to the New Orleans City Council. Pat Swilling succeeded her by winning 55% in the runoff, but was denied a full term in 2003, as Austin Badon defeated him in the runoff 53-47%.

Representative Badon is allowed to seek two more terms after his 2007 re-election and was comfortably re-elected with 72% of the vote.

Since District 100 was in New Orleans East, it received some of the worst initial damage from Katrina, with some areas receiving up to 12 feet of water thanks to the one-two punch of storm surges from Lake Pontchartrain and a funnel of water traveling up the Intracoastal Waterway. And, not surprisingly, the district has lost about 2,100 voters since Katrina.

What do we project the 2010 population to be for District 100? In the mayor’s runoff held earlier this year, about 6,100 voted in person, while 3,400 (or a very high 36%) absentee voted. Since this was a high-profile race that garnered national attention, the 9,500 turnout suggests a current or future electorate of about 12,700. Since there are currently about 24,500 registered voters in the district, we project that the district has lost about 48% of its population (the difference between the 24,500 on the voter registration rolls and the 12,700 we think are still active voters). Furthermore, the election results from the 2006 Mayor’s race suggest a current African-American voter influence of 89% (as opposed to the 88% on the voter rolls). Interestingly, this is one of the few parts of New Orleans where the African-American voting influence has steadily increased since Katrina.