October 24, 1987 (first round) November 21, 1987 (runoff) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Louisiana |
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The 1987 Louisiana lieutenant gubernatorial election was held on November 21, 1987, in order to elect the lieutenant governor of Louisiana. Former Republican Secretary of State of Louisiana Paul Hardy defeated incumbent Democratic lieutenant governor Robert Louis Freeman Sr. in the Runoff election, thereby becoming the first Republican to have been elected lieutenant governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction.
Elections in Louisiana—with the exception of U.S. presidential elections—follow a variation of the open primary system called the jungle primary or the nonpartisan blanket primary. Candidates of any and all parties are listed on one ballot; voters need not limit themselves to the candidates of one party. Unless one candidate takes more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a run-off election is then held between the top two candidates, who may in fact be members of the same party. Texas uses this same format for its special elections. In this election, the first round of voting was held on October 24, 1987. The runoff was held on November 21, 1987. [1]
On election day, October 24, 1987, incumbent Democratic lieutenant governor Robert Louis Freeman Sr. and former Republican Secretary of State of Louisiana Paul Hardy received the most votes and thus advanced to a runoff election on November 21. [2]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Robert Louis Freeman Sr. (incumbent) | 586,335 | 40.03 | |
| Republican | Paul Hardy | 429,906 | 29.35 | |
| Democratic | Bill Dodd | 242,519 | 16.56 | |
| Democratic | Patricia Norton | 161,231 | 11.00 | |
| Democratic | Royce J. Guillory | 24,905 | 1.70 | |
| Democratic | Budd Olister | 19,944 | 1.36 | |
| Total votes | 1,464,840 | 100.00 | ||
On election day, November 21, 1987, former Republican Secretary of State of Louisiana Paul Hardy defeated incumbent Democratic lieutenant governor Robert Louis Freeman Sr. by a margin of 61,793 votes, thereby gaining Republican control over the office of lieutenant governor for the first time since reconstruction. Hardy was sworn in as the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana on March 14, 1988. [3]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Paul Hardy | 521,992 | 53.15 | |
| Democratic | Robert Louis Freeman Sr. (incumbent) | 460,199 | 46.85 | |
| Total votes | 982,191 | 100.00 | ||
| Republican gain from Democratic | ||||