Voters in two of Louisiana's seven congressional districts cast ballots in closed party primaries Saturday to find replacements for Richard Baker, a longtime Republican congressman, and Bobby Jindal, the new Republican governor.

The elections, first steps in the new closed party primary system for federal elections, took place in the 1st and 6th congressional districts, which cover much of southeast Louisiana.

In the 1st Congressional District, state Sen. Steve Scalise led the pivotal Republican race, but was forced into a runoff with state Rep. Tim Burns of Mandeville. The winner of the GOP contest will be the strong favorite to win Jindal's seat because of the district's strong conservative leaning. Scalise had about 48 percent of the vote and Burns 28 percent.

On the Democratic side, Gilda Reed, an adjunct professor at the University of New Orleans, beat Vinny Mendoza, an Air Force retiree. Reed won the backing of trade unions and won about 70 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, state Reps. Don Cazayoux and Michael Jackson appeared to be headed for a runoff in the 6th Congressional District's Democratic contest. Cazayoux, who's from New Roads, had about 40 percent of the vote with 359 of 512 precincts counted. Jackson, who's from Baton Rouge, had 25 percent.

In the 6th district's Republican contest, Woody Jenkins, a former state House member who ran a high-profile race for U.S. Senate in 1996, led with about 51 percent of the votes with 359 of 512 precincts counted and was on pace to avoid a runoff.

This was the first time since the 1970s that Louisiana saw closed party primaries in federal elections. The seats opened up after Baker retired and took a job in the private sector and Jindal became governor in January.

The 1st district takes up a large portion of Jefferson Parish, including the suburban population centers of Metairie and Kenner, a slice of New Orleans and areas north of Lake Pontchartrain. Scalise is a 43-year-old computer systems engineer from Jefferson and he has won the GOP establishment's money and endorsements. Besides Burns, the GOP field included Slidell Mayor Ben Morris and Mandeville businessman David Simpson. Morris took about 21 percent of the vote and Simpson about 3 percent.

Morris and Burns sought to draw votes away from Scalise by criticizing his record on taxes and questioning his former company's involvement with state contracts.

In the 6th district, Jenkins had been given an edge against the other Republicans. Jenkins spent decades in the Legislature and narrowly lost the 1996 Senate race. Jenkins is the only one in the GOP field who has held elected office and he now publishes free community newspapers.

He faced Paul Sawyer, a former Baker aide, businesswoman Laurinda Calongne and little-known Michael Cloonan of East Feliciana Parish. Calongne and Sawyer trailed Jenkins with 26 percent and 22 percent of the votes, respectively. Cloonan had 1 percent.

As for the Democrats, Andy Kopplin and Jason DeCuir trailed Cazayoux and Jackson with about 17 percent of the vote each.

Kopplin was chief of staff to Republican Gov. Mike Foster and then to Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco. He was later appointed to head Blanco's hurricane recovery agency, the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Jason DeCuir is a lawyer who's never held elective office but narrowly lost a high-profile 2007 race to replace former Sen. Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge.

The Democratic field was rounded out by Joe Delatte, a Zachary construction worker whose low-budget campaign has the slogan "Regular Joe For Congress." Delatte had about 2 percent of the vote.

Independent and third-party candidates are Peter Aranyosi of Hammond, Ashley Casey of Baton Rouge and Randall Hayes of Winnfield. Their names will appear on the May 3 ballot.

The 6th Congressional District includes all or part of nine parishes: Ascension, East and West Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena, Pointe Coupee, Iberville, East and West Feliciana.

Party runoffs will be held April 5, if necessary. The general election is set for May 3 but could be pushed up to April 5 if runoffs are avoided.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)