LAFAYETTE, LA. ? Newly elected governor Kathleen Blanco, the first woman to hold the job in Louisiana, on Sunday started piecing together a new administration.

Blanco, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, defeated conservative Indian-American Bobby Jindal with 52 percent of the vote in a runoff election Saturday that dashed the Republican Party’s hopes for a sweep of the Deep South. And while Blanco acknowledged she still was getting adjusted to the new title, she offered an outline of her plans.

“After we hugged everyone and received congratulations from everyone, we got down to the business of organizing,” Blanco, 60, said Sunday.

The new governor, who will be inaugurated Jan. 12, said she had already conducted an emergency preparedness briefing and planned immediate meetings with the heads of Louisiana’s major businesses. She said she had not developed a firm timetable on when she would name the members of her administration.

The win marks the first time a Democrat has been elected Louisiana governor since Gov. Mike Foster was elected eight years ago. Term limits prevented Foster from running again, but he had thrown his support behind Jindal, his 32-year-old protege who served as an assistant health secretary under President Bush.

Republicans had hoped Jindal would give them a sweep of governorships in every Deep South state — Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina — for the first time since Reconstruction.

Blanco won with 52 percent, or 730,737 votes, to Jindal’s 48 percent, or 676,180.

Louisiana Gov.-elect Kathleen Blanco, right, is all smiles as she arrives for a news conference in Lafayette, La., with state Rep. Jerry LeBlanc, D-Lafayette. Blanco won the Louisiana governorship Saturday.