NATIONAL ELECTION RETURNS : State-by-State Election Reports of Key Races and Issues : Louisiana
NEW ORLEANS — Despite Louisiana’s oil recession, voters were satisfied enough with Republican policies to give George Bush the state’s 10 electoral votes by a solid margin.
With 81% of the state’s precincts reporting, Bush had 783,509 votes or 57%, to 554,661 or 43% for Democrat Michael S. Dukakis, keeping Louisiana in the GOP column for the third consecutive presidential election.
U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, Bush’s state campaign director, said the state’s voters decided on the race on broad philosophical issues rather than such specifics as the state’s economic woes, which Democrats had hoped would work in their favor.
Seven of the state’s eight congressional races were settled in the Oct. 1 primary. In a repeat of their 1986 runoff, Republican incumbent Clyde Holloway of the 8th District successfully fought off Democrat Faye Williams, who sought to become the first black elected to Congress from the state since Reconstruction.
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