INCUMBENT: Regina Barrow (Democrat)

DESCRIPTION: House District 29 is located in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area and in East Baton Rouge Parish includes neighborhoods adjacent to Metro Airport along Airline Highway and Plank Road. It also includes the ExxonMobil refinery/chemical plant, then it crosses over the “Old Bridge” into West Baton Rouge Parish to include Port Allen and Brusly along LA 1.

DISTRICT MAP:

District Map

RED/BLUE RATING (using 2008, 2012, and 2014 elections): 82% Democratic

JMCEL’s SUMMARY: House District 29 was designed to be a black majority district during the 1991 reapportionment, and despite shifting boundaries has always included portions of East Baton Rouge parish north of Florida Boulevard and West Baton Rouge in and around Port Allen. This is a district that has had steady legislative representation. Its first representative was Sharon Weston Broome, who represented the district from 1992 to 2005, when the election of former state senator “Kip” Holden as Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish in 2004 created a vacant state senate seat, which Rep. Broome ran for and won. In the 2005 special election to fill the seat, Regina Barrow was elected in the runoff with 59%, and was re-elected in 2007 with 65%, and with 64% in 2011. Rep. Barrow is term limited this year, but a black Democrat will almost certainly be elected in her place, given that the district has a 79% black voter registration and gave Barack Obama 82% of the vote and Mary Landrieu 83% of the vote.