Republican John Schroder to become Louisiana's next treasurer, defeats Derrick Edwards

A comparative handful of voters Saturday chose Covington businessman John Schroder to be the state’s treasurer for the next two years.

He led Democratic New Orleans lawyer Derrick Edwards from the very beginning of the evening when the absentee votes were posted a minute after the 3,904 polling stations in all 64 parishes closed. Schroder polled 208,118 ballots or about 56 percent of the vote, according to complete but unofficial returns.

The race to fill the remaining two years of John N. Kennedy’s term as treasurer failed to attract money, attention, and in the end, voters. About 12.5 percent of the state's 2.97 million registered voters bothered to go to the polls — the lowest turnout of any recent statewide election.

In fact, it was the low turnout that caused the only suspense. Louisiana has elected only one Democrat to statewide office since 2008. In most parishes the treasurer’s race was alone or shared the ballot with local tax millage renewals. When the expected low turnout was coupled with a modestly higher turnout in the Democratic stronghold of New Orleans, which is electing a mayor, it gave Edwards an outside chance of an upset.

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