When President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow against Sen. Bill Cassidy, many thought she had a clear path to the upper chamber.
But three months after Trump pushed Letlow into the field, the race stands as a tight three-way contest between her, Cassidy and State Treasurer John Fleming, with all of them appearing to have a real chance to make the June runoff.
That has some Louisiana Republicans reconsidering whether Cassidy could survive in spite of his breaks with the president, including his 2021 vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, and his low polling numbers compared to Letlow and Fleming. Others are wondering if Letlow might end up locked in a runoff with Fleming that could prove much more challenging to her chances.
She has been massively outspent by Cassidy on the airwaves, still has low name ID compared to her opponents, and faces in Fleming another candidate with MAGA appeal and his own network of support. That’s making it harder for her to capitalize on Trump’s endorsement and rally the base behind her as she runs her first statewide campaign under a compressed timeline.
The outcome will be a test for Trump, whose meddling in the Louisiana Senate race may reveal the power of his endorsement at a time when his approval is at an all time low — as well as the viability of his efforts to seek vengeance against Republicans who cross him.
“The Trump endorsement has not had a close-out move. Cassidy was ready for her,” said GOP state Rep. Mike Bayham, who has not publicly supported any candidate yet. “They defined her before she introduced herself.”
Public polling gives a muddied picture of the primary, with polls from late March showing Letlow holding a narrow lead. A recent memo from Letlow’s campaign highlights an independent poll showing her leading with 29 percent, followed by Fleming at nearly 24 percent and Cassidy at nearly 20 percent. It also includes potential runoff scenarios showing her leading Cassidy 50 percent to 24 percent and in a statistical dead heat with Fleming in a head-to-head matchup.
“We’re in the middle of a dogfight,” said Mark Harris, a Cassidy aide. “Everyone’s expectation is that she would shoot to a large lead and that we’d all be running from behind. But frankly I think they just weren’t ready for this race.”
Letlow’s campaign claims that she has the most momentum in the race. She’s been endorsed by the Jefferson Parish Republican Executive Committee, one of the largest GOP groups in the state, and has the backing of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who has clashed with Cassidy and made the unusual move of selecting her over a Republican incumbent.
“We are talking about an incumbent who is underwater,” said a Letlow campaign aide. “Julia is surging. Her lead continues to grow the more the people learn that she’s endorsed by the President.”
Trump and his allies haven’t stepped in much for Letlow beyond his initial endorsement — at least not yet. The Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-aligned Make America Healthy Again PAC has pledged to spend $1 million to boost Letlow and oust Cassidy, who has been openly skeptical of the Health secretary. But Louisiana Republicans are still waiting to see if the president’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., will spend any of the $300 million cash it has on hand.
MAGA Inc. has been tightlipped about its midterm spending plans so far and whether it will toss money to Letlow for the primary or runoff.
A MAGA Inc. PAC spokesperson and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Cassidy, boosted by a massive war chest, has been outspending Letlow for weeks. His campaign has combined with the Louisiana Freedom Fund, an outside group backing the senator, to pour more than $14 million into the race on ads, most of them attacks against Letlow. Letlow’s campaign and outside groups have combined to spend just $4.6 million, according to the tracking service AdImpact. Federal Election Commission fundraising reports next week will reveal her fundraising capabilities and if she’ll be able to keep pace with Cassidy’s haul.
Letlow’s ads have almost exclusively focused on her endorsement from Trump, rather than attacks on Cassidy. But he’s gone hard after her.
In recent days, Cassidy’s campaign has highlighted a video of Letlow praising diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives while interviewing for a job as president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 2020. They’re also hammering her for trading stocks of defense contractors amid the war in Iran.
In response to Cassidy’s DEI attacks, Letlow has pointed to his support for Biden’s economic stimulus package that included equity provisions to help underserved schools and businesses impacted by the pandemic.
Letlow told a local news outlet in March that DEI initiatives at the university had been “presented to us as something that would help students achieve the American dream,” but that she realized that the diversity push was “hijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination.”
“Cassidy’s problem in this race is that he’s trying to make it an ideological race. The problem with that framing is that he has spent the past four years trying to undermine the president,” the Letlow aide said, referencing Cassidy’s initial refusal to support Trump’s third presidential bid and call for Trump to drop out after the FBI raided Mar-A-Lago in an investigation of his handling of classified documents.
Part of Letlow’s challenge is that she hails from a rural district in north Louisiana far from the population hubs of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Her district is more culturally aligned with the deep South and starkly different from the Catholic, Cajun and Creole influence throughout the southern half of the state.
“People haven’t met her. She’s almost invisible as a candidate,” said East Baton Rouge Parish Chair Woody Jenkins, who has not decided who he supports but used to work for Fleming in the Treasurer’s office.
“When you’re just meeting someone new in politics, and you hear all these bad things, you might have a first impression, but you tend to start having second thoughts,” he added. “And he’s just relentless in it.”
And then there’s the Fleming factor.
“The two runoff spots are wide open,” said Matt Kay, Caddo Parish GOP chair, who described himself as an “anybody but Cassidy voter.” Kay said he was initially leaning toward Letlow, but after he saw her comments in support of DEI, he became interested in Fleming, who he sees as “more in touch with conservative voters.”
Fleming has largely self-funded his campaign, which launched last year. One of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus, he’s made inroads with Republican voters, especially in rural communities, with his stark opposition to carbon capture, which he says is a dangerous process that risks water contamination, costs taxpayers and violates property rights.
Both Fleming and Letlow have been aggressively attacking Cassidy for his impeachment vote, calling it a deep betrayal of MAGA and disqualification for the Senate. Louisiana is conducting closed primaries for the first time this year, a change that Fleming thinks will benefit conservatives like him.
“Number one, you have a mistrust of Senator Cassidy amongst Republican based voters,” said John Couvillon, a pollster who works on behalf of Fleming. “Number two, since he does have a relatively Republican voting record, that doesn’t get him any great affections from Democrats either. So he’s kind of the proverbial man without a political country.”
But some Republicans no longer feel that Cassidy’s vote in 2021 to convict Trump should be disqualifying, and they’re reluctant to relinquish his leadership positions to a freshman senator. They also point out that Cassidy, despite expressing concerns about Kennedy’s rejection of some vaccines, ultimately voted for his confirmation, along with the rest of the Trump Cabinet.
“I don’t believe his vote to convict President Trump should be the reason we ought to oust him,” said Kelby Daigle, chair of the St. Martin Parish GOP. “I think it’s silly. We should move on. It’s old news.”
Andrew Howard contributed to this report.
CORRECTION: The poll mentioned in Letlow’s campaign memo is an independent survey.
This article has been updated to mention that Jenkins once worked in Fleming’s office.
Politics
