Danae Columbus
District A Councilman Joe Giarrusso III addresses the audience at his June 23 campaign kickoff.
For Joe Giarrusso III, the question was not whether he would win his re-election bid for City Council District A, but by how much. The answer: by a landslide.
Giarrusso crushed his competition, Libertarian Amy Misko and fellow Democrat Robert Murrell, and won with 76% of the vote in Saturday’s election, according to unofficial results from the Louisiana Secretary of State. In comparison, he won his first race for City Council in 2017 with 65% of the vote.
The incumbent council member not only earned more than three times as many votes as his two opponents combined, he won in every District A precinct.
His strongest performance was in the University area of Uptown, where he won more than 90% of the vote in four 14th Ward precincts (9, 8, 14 and 6).
His weakest performance — although he still prevailed — was in a few left-leaning Mid-City spots: 5th Ward precincts 9 and 10, in the lower Bayou St. John area, and 3rd Ward precinct 19, a slice of Mid-City between Canal Street and the Pontchartrain Expressway. Bob Murrell, an avid supporter of Bernie Sanders and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had a strong showing among those voters.
It likely helped that Giarrusso was also the clear winner in fundraising: He had more than $225,000 in his campaign coffers at the beginning of October.
District A voter turnout of 30%, while low, was higher than the 28% city average for the primary election that was delayed for a month due to Hurricane Ida. .
A map of voting results by precinct is below. Check this interactive version of the map to see how your neighborhood voted. Find your ward and precinct here.
Reporter Sharon Lurye can be reached at sharonrlurye@gmail.com.
