2022 Shreveport mayoral election

2022 Shreveport mayoral election

← 2018 November 8, 2022 (first round)
December 10, 2022 (runoff)
2026 →
 
Candidate Tom Arceneaux Gregory Tarver Mario Chavez
Party Republican Democratic Independent
First round 14,709
28.46%
12,202
23.61%
9,458
18.30%
Runoff 20,724
56%
16,040
44%
Eliminated

 
Candidate Adrian Perkins LeVette Fuller
Party Democratic Democratic
First round 9,090
17.59%
5,029
9.73%
Runoff Eliminated Eliminated

Second round precinct results
Arceneaux:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90%
Tarver:      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90%

Mayor before election

Adrian Perkins
Democratic

Elected mayor

Tom Arceneaux
Republican

The 2022 Shreveport mayoral election took place on November 8, 2022, with a runoff election on December 10 because no candidate obtained a majority of the vote in the first round. It selected the next mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana. Incumbent Democratic mayor Adrian Perkins sought re-election to a second term in office, but finished fourth in the general election. Former Shreveport City Councillor Tom Arceneaux, a Republican, and Louisiana state senator Gregory Tarver, a Democrat, advanced to the runoff election. Besides Perkins, other candidates eliminated in the general election include Caddo Parish Commission president Mario Chavez and city councillor LeVette Fuller.[1]

In the runoff, Perkins and the two previous mayors of Shreveport, all black Democrats, endorsed Arceneaux, a white Republican, over Tarver, a black Democrat. They emphasized that their endorsement was based on personality rather than politics and that they believed Arceneaux to be best for the job. However, they also criticized Tarver for voting against the Justice Reinvestment Act, a 2017 sentencing reform bill championed by Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards. Tarver was endorsed by other prominent Democrats, including Edwards and former mayor Keith Hightower, as well as Republicans including Louisiana Senate president Page Cortez.[2]

The runoff was hotly contested, with both men facing attack ads over accusations of domestic violence against them in the past. Tarver was also criticized because he lived outside of Shreveport until 2021 and his wife received $600,000 in contracts from riverboat casinos that he helped bring to the city. Tarver and Arceneaux denied wrongdoing in all cases and called for the outside groups running the negative ads to pull them from the air. A crucial issue in the race was crime. Tarver was described as running a "tough on crime" campaign and said he would gather law enforcement agencies to develop a plan for reducing violent crime, while Arceneaux believed the best strategy to reduce crime was to improve neighborhoods affected by blight, and proposed imposing liens on blighted property to encourage the owners to improve or sell them.[3]

Arceneaux won the runoff election with 56% of the vote to 44% for Tarver.[4] This was the first Shreveport mayoral race won by a Republican since 1994.[5]

  1. ^ "Fuller, Perkins concede mayoral race; Tarver and Arceneaux to meet in runoff Dec. 10". November 9, 2022.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference trio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference wild was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Arceneaux wins mayor-elect for City of Shreveport".
  5. ^ Dante, Kendrick. "Who's running for Shreveport Mayor in 2022? Here's a list of candidates". Shreveport Times.