U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal '91.5, R-La., may become the governor of Lousiana Saturday - but only if he can get over 50 percent of the vote, a rare occurrence in the Bayou State due to its unique electoral system.
State elections in Louisiana - except for presidential and, starting next year, congressional races - are held using a non-partisan primary, sometimes known as the "jungle primary." All candidates running for office - including multiple candidates from the same party - are listed on one ballot, and unless one candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, a run-off election must be held between the two top candidates.
"One weird effect is that it is unclear who you are appealing to" in the primary, said Pearson Cross, assistant professor of political science at the University of Louisiana. "You have to play to the whole crowd, figure out who the voters are and seek them out. You're not restricted in any way, so (in the run-off,) you could get two Republicans or two Democrats running against each other."
But Jindal, a member of the Brown Corporation, may not have much trouble avoiding the runoff. A recent poll by Southeastern Louisiana University and WWL-TV, a local television station, showed Jindal with a commanding 50 percent of the vote.
Jindal is the only Republican candidate in the 13-strong field. Two other candidates, Walter Boasso and John Georges, switched from being Republicans to being a Democrat and an independent, respectively, early in the campaign.
Democratic candidate and businessman Foster Campbell is "the only real Democrat in the race," said his press secretary, Bill Robertson. Boasso changed parties because he "saw no daylight in front of Bobby Jindal," Robertson said.
Jindal, who could not be reached for comment for this article, ran for governor in 2003 but lost in the runoff to current Gov. Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat. He has had a string of high-profile successes since graduating from Brown: after winning a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University, Jindal served as secretary of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals and shortly after was appointed president of the University of Louisiana system. He was later an undersecretary in the Department of Health and Human Services under President Bush.
After his defeat in 2003, Jindal ran for and was elected to the House of Representatives, where he is now in his second term. He was the second Indian-American elected to Congress.
Blanco, widely criticized for the state government's reaction to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, initially said she would seek re-election but then, in March, changed her mind.
Even with 12 other gubernatorial candidates, in many ways Jindal is "running against Blanco even though she's not on the ticket," Cross said.
The voters are "experiencing the 2007 election as a redo of 2003. They have a case of buyer's remorse in terms of Blanco," he said.
Despite that, "Katrina is surprisingly absent from this election," Cross said.
But Katrina did have another effect on the election - Cross said some estimate that Katrina forced about 50,000 committed Democratic voters out of the state.
But Robertson, Campbell's press secretary, said that effect has been "greatly overstated" and that demographers in New Orleans showed that Democrats who have consistently showed up at the polls to vote every year are not the same Democrats who left the state.
