BATON ROUGE — An opportunity to double the number of African-American governors in the Louisiana open primary Oct. 14 was lost as 700,000 African-American registered voters sat out the election.

Shawn Wilson, the Democratic contender, had been expected to make a two person runoff, but failed to top 50,000 voters in either East Baton Rouge or Orleans Parishes.   Republican Jeff Landry won a majority with just over 500,000 voters in a state with 3.1 million registered voters, 1.1 million of them Black.

Louisiana was the only state to have a Black governor during the period after the Civil War.  The June 30 New Orleans massacre in 1866 was the catalyst for the ratification of the 14th Amendment to annul the Dred Scott decision.

Maryland, which elected Wes Moore governor in 2022 and Louisiana have the same percentage of African-American population.