Nitta Hutter (R)
Term limited in 2011
District Map

2002 Senate Race (Runoff)
Mary Landrieu (D) 5,066 (46%)
Suzy Terrell (R) 5,988 (54%)

2003 Governors Race (Runoff)
Kathleen Blanco (D) 5,443 (41%)
“Bobby” Jindal (R) 7,705 (59%)

2004 Presidential Race
George W. Bush (R) 10,629 (66%)
John Kerry (D) 5,241 (33%)
Others 155 (1%)

2004 Senate Race
David Vitter (R) 9,764 (63%)
Chris John (D) 3,202 (21%)
Others 2,562 (16%)

2006 Secretary of State Race
Jay Dardenne (R) 532 (34%)
Francis Heitmeier (D) 451 (29%)
Mike Francis (R) 110 (7%)
Mary Chehardy (R) 293 (19%)
Others 182 (11%)

2007 Governors Race
“Bobby” Jindal (R) 2,001 (39%)
Walter Boasso (D) 2,433 (47%)
John Georges (I) 520 (10%)
Foster Campbell (D) 171 (3%)
Others 49 (1%)

2007 Agriculture Commissioner Race
“Bob” Odom (D) 2,159 (45%)
Mike Strain (R) 1,802 (38%)
Wayne Carter (R) 597 (12%)
Don Johnson (R) 239 (5%)

House District 104 is located in St. Bernard Parish and contains most of Chalmette and Meraux. The district has a relatively low (10%, up from 7% in 2003) African-American population, and most of that is concentrated in the town of Meraux and in a handful of precincts in Chalmette. The voting population of the district was static before Hurricane Katrina hit the area head on, with less than 1% growth. The catastrophic damage unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, however, has caused a massive exodus from the area, and as a result, the district has lost 27% of its voters since then, with every precinct in the district losing 13 to 46% of their voters.

St. Bernard Parish in general and District 104 in particular is blue-collar suburbia and typically votes Republican in contested statewide races, with levels of support ranging from Suzy Terrell’s 54% (she was running against New Orleans native Mary Landrieu) to George Bush’s 66%. Even in the 2004 U.S. House race that Democrat Charlie Melancon ultimately won, Republican Billy Tauzin received 61% of the district vote. This level of Republican support is fairly constant throughout the district, although Meraux tends to tilt more Democratic due to the larger African-American population there. In 2007, the “hometown hero” appeal of Republican turned Democrat Walter Boasso enabled him to carry the district over “Bobby” Jindal, however.

Despite the Republican tendencies in statewide elections, Democrats still held the state house seat for years with little incident; even in the 1995 Republican sweep, former representative Tommy Warner (who served from 1988 to 2000) still received 67% of the vote against a Republican. However, when the seat opened up in 2000, Republican Nita Hutter was victorious in the December runoff with 51% of the vote, receiving 53% of the vote in Chalmette and 46% of the vote in the Meraux precincts. She was re-elected in the 2003 primary with 61% of the vote against Republican Mike Bayham, who is now seeking Rep. Odinet’s term-limited seat.

Rep. Hutter is allowed to seek another (and her final) full term in 2007. Though she did not win overwhelmingly in her 2003 re-election race against a fellow Republican, she received an impressive 69% of the vote in 2007 against her Democratic opponent.

The larger question, however, is whether the district will even exist after the 2011 reapportionment. The district and areas to the south received some of the worst damage from Hurricane Katrina in terms of storm surge, flooding from the nearby Industrial Canal breach, and an oil spill from a local refinery when the storm surge moved an oil storage tank off its base. These incidents, and the slow recovery, have created a significant (27%) exodus of voters from the district - the largest decrease of any house district.