NEW ORLEANS — Democrat Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, riding an eleventh-hour surge in support and fending off a political upstart, was elected Louisiana's first female governor Saturday, dashing Republicans' hopes for a sweep of governor's seats in the Deep South.
Blanco, 60, a conservative Democrat, seventh-generation Louisianan and lieutenant governor for the last eight years, becomes the seventh woman governor in the nation.
She beat 32-year-old Republican policy expert Bobby Jindal, who was making his first run at elected office. Jindal, the son of immigrants from India, would have been the first nonwhite to serve as governor in the Deep South since Reconstruction. He also would have been the nation's first Indian American governor.
At a late-night victory party, Blanco appeared before boisterous supporters. Barely able to fit on a packed stage and interrupted repeatedly by applause, Blanco hugged her mother and led the room in prayer.
Her voice hoarse and her eyes brimming with tears, she thanked Jindal for his "devotion to Louisiana," and said she saw her victory as a rejection of the caustic and often corrupt history of state politics.
"We have sent a message out to the nation that this is a new Louisiana," she said. "You have demanded change. We will deliver. We are going to do this by working together."
In the ballroom of a French Quarter hotel in New Orleans, Jindal walked through a service entrance, holding his 1-year-old daughter in his arms, and thanked his supporters, who mustered a chant of "Bobby! Bobby!"
Jindal shook his head as he remembered the days -- not long ago -- when he was considered an "asterisk in the polls." Polls had shown Jindal with a sizeable lead just a week ago, but Blanco made a strong run in the final days of the race.
"I stand here tonight disappointed but not discouraged," Jindal said. "Although we didn't win, we did succeed. It has been an honor, a great honor, to represent the aspirations, the hopes, of thousands of hard-working Louisianans."
Jindal did not mention Blanco in his speech.
Louisiana has sent only white men to the governor's mansion since Reconstruction. Because the race would have broken new ground for the state regardless of the winner, the election was one of the most closely watched in the storied history of Louisiana politics.
