BATON ROUGE - Newcomer Katie Kennison unseated longtime school board member Connie Bernard in one of the most unusual races of the 2022 election cycle.

Kennison — a Democrat who campaigned on being "anything but a politician" — beat out Bernard in Saturday's runoff, a special election that happened over three months after Bernard said she was dropping out of the race.

Bernard, who has been a school board member for over a decade, told news outlets she was dropping her re-election campaign back in September. However, due to the timing of her announcement, the Secretary of State's Office said it was too late to remove her name from the November ballot.

Despite quitting her campaign, more than a third of the participating voters in her district voted for Bernard in the general election, forcing Saturday's runoff. The surprising result propelled Bernard to change her mind and participate in the runoff.

Bernard has been at the center of multiple controversies, including a video showing her on a profane tirade directed at partying high schoolers and another incident where she was caught online shopping during a school board meeting discussing racism and the renaming of Lee High School.