BATON ROUGE, La. -- A Democrat won a special congressional election Saturday, bolstering his party's majority status on Capitol Hill by taking a seat Republicans have held since 1974.

Don Cazayoux, a lawyer and state lawmaker, beat Republican Woody Jenkins to cap a race that Democrats viewed as a chance to further tighten control over Congress. The seat opened when Republican Richard Baker, a 20-year incumbent, resigned to take a lobbying job.

With all precincts reporting, Cazayoux had 49 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Jenkins, a community newspaper publisher. Three independents combined to take 5 percent.

The congressional district includes Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes.

"People in Louisiana are hungry for a new direction in Washington," Cazayoux said in a written statement issued by his campaign.

Meanwhile, Republicans retained a seat as expected in another special election held in the 1st Congressional District in suburban New Orleans.

State Sen. Steve Scalise easily beat Democrat Gilda Reed, taking 75 percent of the vote to 22 percent with all precincts reporting. Two independent candidates captured the remainder of the vote. The seat was formerly held by Republican Bobby Jindal, who resigned in January before being sworn in as governor.

Coming in the middle of a presidential cycle, the Cazayoux-Jenkins race attracted attention and money from Washington interest groups and the national parties.

"It's of enormous national significance," said Dane Strother, a Washington-based Democratic consultant. President Bush won 59 percent of the district's vote in 2004, he noted.

"If we take yet another Republican seat, a seat that has been considered safe for years, then every 59-percent district is at play," he said. . The race didn't generate great interest among voters: turnout was about 24 percent, according to unofficial figures released by the secretary of state's office.

Cazayoux, 44, who raised twice as much money as Jenkins, was attacked in ads that painted him as a supporter of presidential contender Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Jenkins narrowly lost a bitter Senate race in 1996 to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and a 1999 race for state elections commissioner. His company, Great Oaks Broadcasting, has run into problems for not paying taxes on time.

Jenkins won the endorsement of the popular Republican Jindal, but has also been connected with polarizing characters. In 2002, the Federal Elections Commission fined him for concealing his purchase of a phone bank tied to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. In the 1980s, Jenkins was aligned with Iran-Contra figure Oliver North through a charity he operated, Friends of the Americas, which sent medical supplies to Central America.

With Cazayoux's victory, Louisiana's seven-member delegation has three Democrats for the first time since 2004, and for only the second time in 12 years.