INCUMBENT: Conrad Appel (Republican)

DESCRIPTION: Senate District 9 is located mostly in the Eastbank of Jefferson Parish and is centered in the suburb of Metairie, although some black majority precincts along Airline Highway were placed in an adjacent black majority district during the 2011 reapportionment. The District also includes a portion of New Orleans in and around Audubon Park. The overall tone of this district is upper middle income suburbia, although there are some high income precincts in Old Metairie and near Audubon Park in New Orleans.

DISTRICT MAP:

District Map

RED/BLUE RATING (using 2008, 2012, and 2014 elections): 66% Republican

JMCEL’s SUMMARY: Senate District 9 is politically a Republican suburban district, although it has had some affection for former senator Mary Landrieu, and the addition of portions of Uptown New Orleans after the 2011 reapportionment slightly moderates the district’s political leanings; district-wide, Mitt Romney got 69% of the vote, while 64% supported Bill Cassidy.

In legislative races, this was a district that for years was one of the few to elect a Republican senator (which it has done since 1982), when “Ken” Hollis was elected in a special election, and for a couple of years was the chamber’s lone Republican senator. He was generally easily re-elected, and served until 2007, when he was term limited (his son Paul currently holds a House seat across the lake in Saint Tammany Parish). In the 2007 election to replace him, then state representative Steve Scalise (who was himself term limited) was elected in the primary, but on the same night as he was elected to the state senate, “Bobby” Jindal was elected Governor, and Jindal’s U.S. House seat therefore became vacant. Sen. Scalise immediately jumped into that race and was elected in 2008, which meant that a special election was held in the fall of 2008 to fill the seat, and in that race, Conrad Appel was elected with 52% of the vote in the runoff. He was unopposed in 2011, and is allowed to serve one more term. Given the district’s basic Republican nature, he should be easily re-elected.