NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans’ first female mayor will stay for four more years.
WWL-TV analysts project that Mayor LaToya Cantrell has won a second term.
"I have to thank the residents of the City of New Orleans who decided that they saw leadership in me that they did not want to let go of," Cantrell said during her victory speech.
Cantrell faced 13 largely unknown challengers. Many of the candidates running against her were political newcomers without much name recognition or candidates who have run several times without much to show for it.
WWL-TV political analyst Ron Faucheux said that group of unknowns drew a decent amount of votes, showing that many people disagree with how Cantrell ran the city in her first four years as mayor.
"If she does get 60%, you have to keep in mind that 40% of the electorate went to the polls and voted for basically unknown candidates against the incumbent mayor," Faucheux said. "So, there's clearly a significant amount of opposition to her and what she was doing for the first four years."
Cantrell was fired up as she gave her victory speech. She promised to take on New Orleans' problems on multiple levels and build a better city for the future.
"We’ve made significant progress under the first term because what we do we don’t kick cans, we pick them up," Cantrell said. "This is our time to play to our strengths and the assets that we have in this city. What we do in the next four year will determine what we do in the next 40 or 50."
Cantrell led the city through several tragedies during her first four years as mayor, including the Hard Rock collapse in 2019 that killed three people and the COVID-19 pandemic that killed nearly 1,000 people in New Orleans alone.
Cantrell’s re-election campaign focused on the “tough calls” she made during the pandemic. Mayor Cantrell’s administration forced some of the most restrictive health guidelines in the US to stop the spread of COVID-19. While they weren’t always popular, New Orleans did go from one of the first coronavirus hot spots in the country to an early success story on how to stop the virus.
Cantrell will face the tough task of rebuilding the New Orleans economy in her second term and look to fulfill many of her campaign promises that took a back seat to the pandemic during her first four years. The return of Mardi Gras in 2022 is expected to be a big boost for the city’s return as a tourist destination.
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