Cazayoux won the special election on May 3, 2008, with 49,702 votes (49 percent) to Jenkins' 46,741 votes (46 percent). An independent Republican candidate and two minor candidates held the remaining 5 percent of the vote. Jenkins ran best in the City of Central, where he received 77 percent of the votes cast, and Livingston Parish, a heavily Republican suburban parish near Baton Rouge, where he received 72 percent. However, Cazayoux won by almost 5,000 votes in Jenkins' own East Baton Rouge Parish.