Like most Southern states between the Reconstruction Era and the Civil Rights Movement, Louisiana's Republican Party was virtually nonexistent in terms of electoral support.

Morrison campaigned on a platform of economic progress and development, while Noe and Dodd used promises of increased social programs to compete for traditional Long supporters.

Rainach campaigned as a staunch defender of segregation, using white supremacist rhetoric and attacking his opponents for their perceived softness on "the race question".

After seeing the explosive growth in support enjoyed by the little-known Rainach, who finished in third place after employing racist rhetoric in the primary, Davis adopted a similar tactic in the runoff.

Morrison responded in kind, extolling his record of support for segregation as mayor of New Orleans and questioning Davis's own segregationist credentials.

The political liabilities of being an urbanite, a Catholic, and a perceived integrationist cost Morrison any support he might have expected in conservative, Protestant, segregationist northern Louisiana.

In 1959–1960, former State Police Superintendent Francis Grevemberg rejected cries of "It can't be done" and switched parties to run for governor as a Republican.

Grevemberg was particularly hostile toward the Times-Picayune (New Orleans), which called him a "turncoat" after he left the Democratic party, adding: "I risked my life and those of my family in attempts to rid this state of racketeers ...

In a time of growing support for the civil rights movement, the 1959–60 election was the first since the advent of Jim Crow in which race became the central issue of a Louisiana campaign.