Incumbent Shreveport Mayor Tom Arceneaux, a white Republican, remains the favorite to win reelection in a city with a majority black electorate and a near-majority of black Democrats, results from last week’s election show.
Arceneaux led the field with 36 percent of the vote. Perhaps mildly surprising, Democrat Caddo Parish Commissioner Stormy Gage-Watts barged her way into the runoff with 23 percent, followed by fellow Commissioner Republican John-Paul Young with 18 percent and then 16 percent for Democrat state Rep. Tammy Phelps, with three minor candidates splitting the remaining 7 percent. Conventional wisdom had it that one of the two elected black Democrats would make the runoff.
With her broader political experience and higher profile, it was believed by many that Phelps would outlast Gage-Watts, especially with endorsements from prominent establishment politicians like Democrats state Sen. Sam Jenkins and former Mayor Keith Higtower. Further, her geographic base took in much more of Shreveport than did Gage-Watts’.
But there’s a new sheriff in town, quite literally: Gage-Watts picked up the backing of Democrat Sheriff Henry Whitehorn, and it now appears the old guard counts for a lot less than it used to. Whether her more strident appeals, as opposed the Phelps’ more technocratic agenda, around a theme insinuating that the five majority-black council districts were taking a back seat to the two majority-white in service provision helped or whether Whitehorn’s organization could whip up more support, or both, remains unknown to explain her coming out ahead.
Gage-Watts made the runoff because she markedly performed better with the black Democrat base. In precincts with at least 90 percent black registration, minus their early votes she captured 40 percent of the vote while Phelps could manage only 28 percent, while in precincts with fewer than 10 percent black registrants they averaged, respectively, 3 and 4 percent.
While she may have the organization, she certainly doesn’t have the money to compete. As of mid-October, Arceneaux had over $300,000 available, while Gage-Watts had under $44,000. And the numbers look daunting, in that adding Young’s numbers to Arceneaux’s put him over the top at 54 percent.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Young’s campaign mostly was based on opposition to Arceneaux, born of pique Young thought had been inflicted upon him by the mayor, and undoubtedly some of his voters feel the same and likely won’t vote. Rolling off into the runoff should be expected, but it is unlikely that Arceneaux would suffer more than Gage-Watts from November supporters staying home.
Although unofficial numbers aren’t out, a review of 2026 to 2022 senatorial voting in Louisiana suggests relatively higher black turnout compared to whites. The five parishes with the highest raw numbers of black residents saw an average 11.8 percent raw vote increase in 2026, as compared to the five largest other urban parishes where numbers increased only by about the turnout difference (as of now, unofficially) statewide, 5 percent, implying even lower turnout increases in rural parishes if not declines, most of which have large majority white populations.
Thus, roll off likely disproportionately will impact candidates that black voters supported, and certainly should be expected without high-profile federal or even state elections on the ballot. And as far as Young’s voters go, except for the most disgruntled and the least attentive, both of whom won’t show up in December, the rest are unlikely to tap the button for Gage-Watts, so Arceneaux should get a decent share of them.
Yet these – more money, more enough potential voters out there to go over the top – remain mere associated or ancillary reasons why Arceneaux should win. He should win because, just as he did in the 2022 runoff, he cracked black solidarity in voting for Democrats.
As soon as the dust had settled from that runoff between him and Democrat former state Sen. Greg Tarver, the question begged whether Arceneaux’s winning coalition that depended upon a significant black vote – which was thought to have come from rejecting Tarver on the basis of his checkered history – would hold because that was the only way he could secure reelection. Last week’s results answered that, and stunningly affirmatively.
Indeed, Arceneaux picked up a sixth of the black vote in the black precincts, as a one of two white Republicans in a general election field where the traditional proportion of black crossover voting for that kind of candidate in a runoff against a black Democrat was only a fourteenth. The least he got in all these was just under 10 percent and in the highest he drew over 22 percent. In one where he almost got as much, he actually outdrew Phelps.
Putting things in perspective as to the importance of this dynamic, transferring 14 percent from his nearly 17 percent of the black vote – which would have put him around Young’s proportion which was less than 3 percent – to Phelps would have put her neck-and-neck with Gage-Watts. Arceneaux still would have made the runoff because he received 56 percent in the white precincts while Young could muster only about a third. Young ended up little more than a local candidate, running often 2:1 behind Arceneaux in those precincts and coming close only in his own district, winning just a couple of the ten precincts while losing it overall to Arceneaux by about 150 votes.
To win the runoff, all Arceneaux has to do is hang on to what he has in black precincts – more likely than this, a nontrivial portion of Phelps’ votes in these will head his way. Gage-Watts could quintuple her white precinct support to reach the historical margin black Democrats typically receive in a runoff election with a white Republican, but still would come up well short such is the buffer Arceneaux appears to have locked in.
As a conservative old white guy who until his election hadn’t served in government in over 30 years with none of the bombast often seen in politics, Arceneaux would seem to be an unlikely candidate to win two mayoral terms in a city with registration about a third black Democrats and almost 55 percent black, but he should be favored to do so.
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