Turnout low as Huckabee, Obama win in Louisiana

By Matthew Bigg

ALEXANDRIA, Louisiana (Reuters) - The U.S. primary elections have been called the most gripping in recent years but not in the Deep South state of Louisiana where parties struggled to motivate voters on Saturday.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama beat rival Sen. Hillary Clinton with 57 percent of the vote and early estimates put the turnout at around 15 percent. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the Republican primary beating Sen. John McCain, the expected party nominee.

Despite the low turnout the vote mattered especially for Obama because 66 delegates to the National Convention were at stake and the candidates were in a close race to amass the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.

In Alexandria, a city in the center of the state, voting officials stood idle at several polling stations in black or racially mixed neighborhoods waiting for people to show up.

Hundreds of people crowded a local gymnasium for a basketball game while the voting station in the lobby had seen only 35 voters by mid-morning.

"People don't understand the importance of this (primary) election. They are mainly concerned about the one in November. The ones who have voted are the same old faithful ones," said polling commissioner Ella Creely at an empty voting station.

Republicans lost much of their interest after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pulled out of the race on Thursday, leaving McCain virtually certain to be the party nominee, analysts and voters said.

Democratic turnout in Louisiana has been shrinking for years and the trend seemed likely to continue despite the national interest in the race, analysts said.

Voters in the separate primaries were taking part in the process to choose the Republican and Democratic nominees to contest November's election to succeed President George W. Bush, a Republican.

Obama won with strong support among blacks, who make up around 45 percent of registered Democrats. Republicans in the central town of Jena who voted for Huckabee said they liked his stand on issues important to Christian conservatives.

New Orleans residents said Obama generated buzz when he campaigned there on Thursday. Former president Bill Clinton came to the state on Friday for his wife.

But those visits pale in comparison with the attention candidates lavished on other states before the race went national, said Elliott Stonecipher, a political and demographic analyst based in Shreeveport.

Louisiana, which has a large oil and gas industry, became more strongly Republican after hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005 and forced a lot of younger Democratic voters to leave the state.

Louisiana elected Republican Bobby Jindal governor in October and his conservative views have made him a favorite of the national party, Stonecipher said.

As a result of its conservatism, Stonecipher said few Democrats see it as a state they can win in the presidential election so voters may feel even more neglected by November.

(Editing by Chris Wilson)