Jean Doerge (D)
Term limited in 2011
District Map

2002 Senate Race (Runoff)
Mary Landrieu (D) 5,761 (52%)
Suzy Terrell (R) 5,397 (48%)

2003 Governors Race (Runoff)
Kathleen Blanco (D) 6,927 (53%)
“Bobby” Jindal (R) 6,251 (47%)

2004 Presidential Race
George W. Bush (R) 11,070 (60%)
John Kerry (D) 6,833 (37%)
Others 546 (3%)

2004 Senate Race
David Vitter (R) 9,352 (54%)
Chris John (D) 4,524 (26%)
Others 3,347 (20%)

2006 Secretary of State Race
Jay Dardenne (R) 1,494 (19%)
Francis Heitmeier (D) 2,087 (26%)
Mike Francis (R) 2,913 (36%)
Mary Chehardy (R) 686 (9%)
Others 818 (10%)

2007 Governors Race
“Bobby” Jindal (R) 5,511 (46%)
Walter Boasso (D) 1,669 (14%)
John Georges (I) 1,013 (8%)
Foster Campbell (D) 3,715 (31%)
Others 165 (1%)

2007 Agriculture Commissioner Race
“Bob” Odom (D) 4,953 (44%)
Mike Strain (R) 3,484 (31%)
Wayne Carter (R) 1,954 (17%)
Don Johnson (R) 877 (8%)

House District 10 and Webster Parish are interchangeable; for years, this has been the “Webster Parish district.” Webster Parish tends to support Republicans in federal elections – Bush won 60-37%, while David Vitter received a solid 54-26% margin. In statewide races, the parish tends to split more evenly: Mary Landrieu and Kathleen Blanco received their statewide percentages here. In the 2007 Governor’s race, “Bobby” Jindal led here, but did not receive a majority of the vote, probably due to the “friends and neighbors” appeal of Bossier Parish Democrat Foster Campbell.

The competitive races here are probably because the significant (30%, unchanged since 2003) African-American voter influence here guarantees Democrats a good head start. Curiously, in the 2004 Presidential race, the 2% margin for the Constitution Party was due to the fact that in one (the Doyline) precinct, the vote tallies were apparently recorded incorrectly – the Constitution party “defeated” Bush 276 to 110 in this precinct, and John Kerry was recorded as receiving no votes. Had the vote totals been (in the opinion of the author) correctly interpreted as giving Bush a 276-110 margin over Kerry, Bush would have carried Webster Parish 61-38%, instead of the 60-37% he received according to the certified vote totals.

While the district has lost about 1% of its voter population since 2003, the district had some turnover in its state house representation in the 1990s. From 1979 to 1990, Bruce Bolin was its representative, and was re-elected without incident. He resigned in 1990 upon election to a district judgeship, and was succeeded by Republican Eugene Eason. But Eason was only elected by a 50 vote margin in a low turnout runoff, and he was then defeated in the 1991 runoff by 71 votes when he ran for re-election – he had the misfortune of sharing the runoff ballot with Edwin Edwards and David Duke. This undoubtedly increased the Democratic turnout here. The victor, Democrat Everett Doerge, was then re-elected in 1995 with 63% against two Republicans. He died in 1998, and his wife Jean won the special election with 67% against a Republican. She was unopposed in 1999 and 2003, and was re-elected against Republican School Board member Ronnie Broughton 57-35%.

Representative Doerge is allowed to serve one more seat in the House, and we see this seat as a tossup at that point.