| Election Name: | 2022 Shreveport mayoral election |
| Country: | Shreveport |
| Previous Election: | 2018 Shreveport mayoral election |
| Previous Year: | 2018 |
| Election Date: | November 8, 2022 (first round) December 10, 2022 (runoff) |
| Next Election: | Shreveport mayoral election, 2026 |
| Next Year: | 2026 |
| 1Blank: | First round |
| 2Blank: | Runoff |
| Candidate1: | Tom Arceneaux |
| Party1: | Republican Party (US) |
| 1Data1: | 14,709 28.46% |
| 2Data1: | 20,724 56% |
| Candidate2: | Gregory Tarver |
| Party2: | Democratic Party (US) |
| 1Data2: | 12,202 23.61% |
| 2Data2: | 16,040 44% |
| Image3: | 3x4.svg |
| Candidate3: | Mario Chavez |
| Party3: | Independent (US) |
| 1Data3: | 9,458 18.30% |
| 2Data3: | Eliminated |
| Image4: | File:Adrian Perkins ROTC visit (cropped).jpg |
| Candidate4: | Adrian Perkins |
| Party4: | Democratic Party (US) |
| 1Data4: | 9,090 17.59% |
| 2Data4: | Eliminated |
| Image5: | Shreve Memorial Library Debuts Graphic Novel Collection Photo (cropped).jpg |
| Candidate5: | LeVette Fuller |
| Party5: | Democratic Party (US) |
| 1Data5: | 5,029 9.73% |
| 2Data5: | Eliminated |
| Mayor | |
| Before Election: | Adrian Perkins |
| Before Party: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| After Election: | Tom Arceneaux |
| After Party: | Republican Party (United States) |
The 2022 Shreveport mayoral election took place on November 8, 2022, with a runoff election on December 10 because no candidate obtained a majority of the vote in the first round. It selected the next mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana. Incumbent Democratic mayor Adrian Perkins sought re-election to a second term in office, but finished fourth in the general election. Former Shreveport City Councillor Tom Arceneaux, a Republican, and Louisiana state senator Gregory Tarver, a Democrat, advanced to the runoff election. Besides Perkins, other candidates eliminated in the general election include Caddo Parish Commission president Mario Chavez and city councillor LeVette Fuller.[1]
In the runoff, Perkins and the two previous mayors of Shreveport, all black Democrats, endorsed Arceneaux, a white Republican, over Tarver, a black Democrat. They emphasized that their endorsement was based on personality rather than politics and that they believed Arceneaux to be best for the job. However, they also criticized Tarver for voting against the Justice Reinvestment Act, a 2017 sentencing reform bill championed by Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards. Tarver was endorsed by other prominent Democrats, including Edwards and former mayor Keith Hightower, as well as Republicans including Louisiana Senate president Page Cortez.
The runoff was hotly contested, with both men facing attack ads over accusations of domestic violence against them in the past. Tarver was also criticized because he lived outside of Shreveport until 2021 and his wife received $600,000 in contracts from riverboat casinos that he helped bring to the city. Tarver and Arceneaux denied wrongdoing in all cases and called for the outside groups running the negative ads to pull them from the air. A crucial issue in the race was crime. Tarver was described as running a "tough on crime" campaign and said he would gather law enforcement agencies to develop a plan for reducing violent crime, while Arceneaux believed the best strategy to reduce crime was to improve neighborhoods affected by blight, and proposed imposing liens on blighted property to encourage the owners to improve or sell them.
Arceneaux won the runoff election with 56% of the vote to 44% for Tarver.[2] This was the first Shreveport mayoral race won by a Republican since 1994.[3]
Perkins was initially disqualified from the race by the First District Court of Louisiana for listing the incorrect address on his notice of candidacy. However, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned that ruling and allowed Perkins's candidacy to continue in a 4-3 decision, ruling that answering certain questions incorrectly on a notice of candidacy is not grounds for immediate disqualification.[4]