Long was an extremely popular and influential politician at the time, and his death eliminated a possible 1936 presidential bid against Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Shortly after passing the bill, Long was ambushed in a hallway by Carl Weiss, Pavy's son-in-law.

[1][2] Long was rushed to the Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, where emergency surgery failed to stop internal bleeding.

Without Long as its leader, his Share Our Wealth movement collapsed, clearing the way for Roosevelt to be re-elected to the White House in a landslide.

Huey Long rose to national stature in the early 1930s for his criticism of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal.

[4] Failing to pass legislation in the Senate, Long formed a national political organization, the Share Our Wealth Society.

[9] His own right-hand-man, Gerald L. K. Smith, declared in 1935 that "the only way they will keep Huey Long from the White House is to kill him."

[11] Long traveled to the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge in order to pass House Bill Number One, a re-redistricting plan which would oust political opponent Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy.

As he proceeded down a corridor, Pavy's son-in-law Carl Weiss stepped out from behind a column, and, according to the official version of events, fired a single shot with an FN Model 1910 semi-automatic pistol from four feet (1.2 m) away.

[13][14] Long was struck in the torso, yelped, and ran down a hallway "like a hit deer", one witness claimed.

Long was able to run down a flight of stairs and across the capitol grounds, hailing a car to take him to the Our Lady of the Lake Hospital.

"[22] Proponents of this theory claim that Long was caught in the crossfire as his bodyguards shot at Weiss, being hit by one of the bullets which ricocheted off the marble walls.

He also claimed that one of Long's former security guards told him that Weiss's gun was removed from his car and planted at the scene.

[17][22] Delmas Sharp Jr., the son of one of Long's bodyguards, claimed that in 1951 his father brought him to a bar owned by Messina.

There is no doubt that his death was accidental, but the consensus of more informed opinion is that he was killed by his own guard and not by Weiss.

[17] Louisiana State University professor T. Harry Williams dismissed this theory in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1969 biography of Long: The suggestion that Huey might have been hit by a wild shot or a ricochet from the guns of the guards had been advanced previously by various individuals, but no one had taken it very seriously, for unless all the witnesses to the event were lying or mistaken, only four shots had been fired while Huey was still in the corridor, the two from Weiss's pistol that struck Huey and Roden's wristwatch, respectively, and the two from the revolvers of Roden and Coleman that dropped Weiss.

But when the suggestion had been made publicly, various people wanted to believe it-members of Weiss' family and anti-politicians, naturally; and persons of the type who sense mystery in any murder case, the kind of people who have created doubts about some of the other great American assassinations.

[27]Long's body, dressed in a tuxedo, lay in an open double casket (of bronze with a glass lid) in the State Capitol rotunda.

Tens of thousands saw the funeral in front of the Capitol on September 12;[28] presiding was Gerald L. K. Smith, co-founder of Share Our Wealth and subsequently of the America First Party.

Only fervent Long supporters were allowed to testify, including a judge who hadn't witnessed the shooting.

[22] Long's allies in the Democratic Party quickly took advantage of the situation, insinuating that the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy, labeling their opponents the "Assassination Party" and publishing a fifty-page propaganda pamphlet titled "Why Huey Long Was Killed!!"

Democratic National Committee Chairman James Farley publicly admitted his apprehension of campaigning against Long: "I always laughed Huey off, but I did not feel that way about him."

Roosevelt's close economic advisor Rexford Tugwell would later write: "When he was gone it seemed that a beneficent peace had fallen on the land.

In 1938, Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal encountered rural children who not only insisted Long was alive, but that he was president.