About an hour from Helena Moreno’s mid-City campaign headquarters and a million miles off most New Orleans politicians’ radar is a bar on Chef Menteur Highway just before the Rigolets known as Crazy Al’s.

Surrounded by the fishing camps and other homes that make up precinct 45A in New Orleans’ 9th Ward (number of registered voters: 92), the corrugated metal building backs up to Lake St. Catherine’s brackish waters. Inside, a couple dozen regulars play video poker, snack on #2 crabs at plastic folding tables and sip Miller Lites. Owner Kayla Beaulieu offers a crab-and-shrimp special on Thursday, but even those are sleepy affairs.

Things were different on a sweltering day in June when Moreno stopped by as part of a 70-event series where she met voters in each of New Orleans’ neighborhood

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