Voters in off-year elections Tuesday decide whether to keep Republican governors in Mississippi and Kentucky, elect four big-city mayors and consider ballot issues including a Utah proposal to pay state tuition aid for students in private schools.
In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour was benefiting from relative success in managing the post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding of the state’s devastated Gulf Coast. He was considered a heavy favorite for re-election over Democrat John Eaves.
The 2005 storm and flooding left Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman, on far firmer political ground than it did his neighbor in Louisiana, where Republican Bobby Jindal last month won the governorship. Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, whose popularity suffered in Katrina’s aftermath, did not seek re-election.
Magnolia Tribune
