Voters in New Orleans are heading to the polls on Saturday to elect a new mayor to replace the outgoing LaToya Cantrell, who is completing her second term and facing charges of corruption. This election promotes a variety of contenders aiming to bring reform to the city’s leadership.
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 comes amid comments from President Donald Trump suggesting the deployment of the National Guard to address crime in New Orleans. Republican Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, has requested this intervention, though the Trump administration has not yet responded with a decision.
Over ten candidates are in the race to take over from Cantrell, a Democrat ineligible for another term due to term limits. Cantrell has remained largely out of the spotlight since federal allegations surfaced in August, accusing her of concealing a romantic relationship with her ex-bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie.
Cantrell has denied guilt in the charges of conspiracy, fraud, and obstruction. Authorities claim Cantrell and Vappie embarked on multiple personal trips, including visits to vineyards, charging the costs to taxpayers, and then attempted to hide the activities.
She’s not the first New Orleans official to face corruption charges; former Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced to a decade in prison in 2014 for crimes involving bribery, laundering, and fraud during his tenure from 2002 to 2010.
Most of the mayoral candidates have largely framed their messages around restoring stability to a tumultuous city hall.
Leading candidates in the election include Helena Moreno, the city council’s vice president and ex-reporter, who is at the forefront with over $3.4 million in campaign funds. State Senator Royce Duplessis and long-serving councilman Oliver Thomas are also significant contenders, with Thomas having previously served 37 months in jail after his 2007 bribery conviction.
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.
