NEW ORLEANS – The race to guide the city through one of the biggest urban reconstruction projects in American history – rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina – was whittled to two familiar candidates: Mayor Ray Nagin and Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu.

Mr. Nagin earned a comfortable lead Saturday with 38% or 41,489 votes, but short of the majority needed to secure a second term as mayor without the May 20 runoff. Mr. Landrieu had 29%, or 31,499 votes. Nonprofit executive Ron Forman followed with 17%, 18,734 votes, and 19 other candidates trailed far behind.

The municipal leadership will make key decisions about where and what to rebuild in a city where whole neighborhoods remain uninhabitable. Despite those stakes, turnout was low – roughly a third of those eligible.

Political and demographic analyst Elliott Stonecipher said the low turnout was disappointing, but it may actually reflect how few people intend to return to the city.

“I’m still in the camp personally disheartened with the turnout,” he said yesterday. “There was certainly nothing in what happened last night that is broadly encouraging.”

Of the city’s 297,000 registered voters, tens of thousands are spread out across America. More than 20,000 cast ballots early by mail, fax, or at satellite voting stations around the state, and thousands more made their way to 76 improvised polling stations. Some traveled by bus or in car caravans from such evacuee havens as Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.

Mr. Nagin said the results showed voters had confidence in his leadership and were not swayed by the critics who panned his response after Hurricane Katrina and his verbal gaffes since then.

“It’s wonderful. It says a lot about how the public is a lot smarter than they get credit for,” he said. “I think this is shocking some people.”

Mr. Landrieu, flanked by his father, Moon Landrieu, the last white mayor of New Orleans, said his showing was testament to the unity the city needs after a storm that put all of New Orleans “literally in the same boat.”

“Today in this great American city, African-American and white, Hispanic and Vietnamese, almost in equal measure, came forward to propel this campaign forward and loudly proclaim that we in New Orleans will be one people,” he said. “We will speak with one voice and we will have one future.”

Race has become a key factor in the election. Less than half the city’s pre-Katrina population of 455,000 have returned, and civil rights activists note that most of those scattered outside the city are black. Prior to the storm, the city was more than two-thirds black; it has not had a white mayor since 1978 when Moon Landrieu left office.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson has said he plans to challenge the election outcome in court regardless of the winner, arguing displaced voters were disenfranchised because they weren’t allowed to vote in polling places in such adopted cities as Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.

Of the ballots cast prior to Saturday’s election, about two-thirds were cast by black voters, but analysts caution the numbers may not reflect overall turnout. The racial breakdown of the full vote was not immediately released.