Like most Southern states between Reconstruction and the civil rights era, Louisiana's Republican Party was virtually nonexistent in terms of electoral support.

This time, Wimberly announced his candidacy in June 1945 and began charging that Maestri ran an inefficient government with high taxes and a compliant commission council which contributed to the city's economic stagnation.

The Independent Citizens Committee, a group of Uptown reformers, began their own search for a candidate who could challenge Maestri and his Old Regulars on a platform of good government and economic development.

Despite his image as a clean reformer, Morrison called for legalized gambling as a way to control vice, and he accepted campaign donations by underworld figure Henry Muller.

The 1946 election saw the emergence of new groups of voters - most notably women, veterans, and members of a newly professionalized civil service - who were not subject to the patronage of the Old Regulars and who thus operated outside the city's traditional machine politics.