Max T. Malone - Malone's Election History

Malone's Election History

In his initial election to the state Senate, Malone led in the primary with 10,422 votes (36 percent). Two Democrats, State Representative Melissa Scott Flournoy and incumbent state Senator Greg Barro narrowly trailed with 9,470 (33 percent) and 9,166 (32 percent), respectively. In the general election, Malone defeated Flournoy—Barro was eliminated—by a comfortable margin. The outcome was 17,075 (59 percent) to 11,961 (41 percent) for Flournoy. There was speculation that Malone benefited from being on the Republican ballot with successful gubernatorial candidate Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr.

Four years earlier, Flournoy had unseated incumbent Republican Representative Arthur W. "Art" Sour, Jr., to win a seat held for twenty years by the GOP. In 1991, Barro had defeated the Republican Ronald Bradford "Ron" Fayard (1946–2011), a Realtor from Bossier City, by a margin of 59-41 percent, an exact reversal of the 1995 result.

In 1999, Malone was challenged by a somewhat conservative Republican, Robert E. "Bob" Barton, and a Democrat, Donald M. "Don" Pierson, Jr. In the primary, Malone led with 8,830 votes (41 percent) to Pierson's 6,973 (32 percent), and Barton's 5,966 (27 percent). Malone went on to defeat Pierson in the general election by 249 votes: 7,297 (51 percent) to 7,048 (49 percent). In 2003, Malone again defeated Pierson but by a much larger margin in the two-man primary than he had in the 1999 general election matchup: 14,790 (60 percent) to 10,010 (40 percent).

In 2006, Malone was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for mayor of Shreveport. He entered the race late and was unable to procure sufficient campaign funding because many GOP donors had already decided months earlier to support former city attorney Jerry Jones. Malone not only failed to win a general election berth but finished in sixth place among eleven candidates with only 602 votes (1 percent) in the September 30 primary.

Prior to the city elections, Malone filed suit in a bid to force Democratic city council candidate Joe Shyne off the ballot because Shyne is a former felon. However, the courts ruled in Shyne's favor because Shyne had been pardoned by Governor Foster for a crime in which he had been convicted in a federal, rather than state, court.