Julia Letlow culminated her improbable rise in Louisiana politics Tuesday by narrowly defeating Jamie Davis, a Democrat, to become Louisiana’s next senator.
Letlow, a third-term member of the U.S. House, will succeed Sen. Bill Cassidy, whom she ousted in May during the closed Republican primary. She made history Tuesday in becoming the first Republican woman elected to the Senate from Louisiana.
Letlow staved off a surprisingly tough challenge by Davis, a farmer from Tensas Parish who was a political unknown at the beginning of the campaign.
In her victory speech, at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, her alma mater and where she was a high-level administrator before unexpectedly running for office five years ago, Letlow thanked Davis and asked the crowd to applaud Cassidy.
"After tonight’s results, we are going to have to fight, and we will fight, but not without hope," she told the crowd.
Complete but unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office showed Letlow won 50.88% of the vote to Davis’ 49.12%. She won by a margin of 25,857 votes out of more than 1.4 million votes cast.
In a speech at his campaign event Tuesday night, Davis did not concede the race.
“It's way too tight to call,” Davis said. “The team that we have assembled, I will go to war with them again tomorrow.”
Davis said he would concede the race “whenever my team finishes crunching the numbers.”
He rode a wave of dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and connected with voters with his story as a third-generation cotton, soybean and corn farmer who has been hurt by high gas and grocery prices. That wave caused Republicans to lose control of the U.S. Senate, meaning Letlow will serve in the minority.
She will begin her six-year Senate term in January.
Letlow’s deep faith leads her to say that God has provided a guiding hand after the tragic deaths of her younger brother Jeremy 24 years ago and her husband Luke six years ago.
Letlow ran a low-key campaign against Davis that counted on Louisiana’s voters to elect her as they have every GOP candidate for Senate since 2010. She didn’t agree to debate Davis, granted few interviews and met with selected supporters behind closed doors. She visited all 64 parishes in what she called “a listening tour.”
Letlow said what she heard from local public officials and voters during those visits gave her lots of ideas for what to do as a senator.
But it’s clear that Trump will exert the most influence on her, as he does with most Republicans in Washington.
“She knows how to win. That’s what we want,” Trump told listeners who phoned in Monday during an election-eve tele-rally with her.
“President Trump endorsed me because he knows I’ll stand with him,” she said several minutes later.
Letlow survives blue wave
Louisiana’s Senate election took place without the intensity of the high-profile Senate races in Texas, Maine, Georgia and elsewhere. Even after national attention focused on the stronger-than-expected race by the Democratic Senate candidate in Mississippi, Scott Colom, the Louisiana election remained an after-thought nationally.
Here’s why: Democrats had so many more enticing opportunities to flip Republican seats elsewhere. Besides, few people thought Letlow could lose.
Trump won Louisiana by 22 points only two years ago. What’s more, no Senate Democratic candidates in Louisiana had come within 12 points of their Republican opponent since then-U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu lost her reelection bid in 2014. And no Black candidate had been elected statewide since the Reconstruction era 150 years ago.
Only in the final days of the campaign did national pundits begin to shift their forecasts to give Davis better odds, even though they still expected him to lose.
Buoying Davis’ chances was a turnout during the seven-day early voting period that exceeded the numbers in past midterm elections, especially by Black voters. That meant Davis could pull off a major upset by winning at least 28% of the White vote. He apparently fell short of that.
During the campaign, Letlow leaned on a few issues. She touted her anti-abortion beliefs, her support for the tax cuts contained in the One Big Beautiful Bill and for her votes for the SAVE America Act that concerns voting rights and is a Trump priority.
Late in the campaign as polls showed the race had tightened, Letlow adopted the red-meat language used by Republican candidates elsewhere by saying “radical socialists” have taken over the Democratic Party.
“This election is about one thing: freedom or socialism,” she said during the tele-rally.
Thrust into the spotlight
Letlow, 45, is an accidental politician. With a doctorate from the University of South Florida in communication, she planned to spend her career in academia.
Only six years ago, Letlow sought to be the next president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe – where she served as a senior staffer.
But after not being selected in late 2020, she said in an interview, she faced an uncertain future in academia.
In the meantime, her husband Luke was running to represent the 5th Congressional District, which stretches from Monroe south to Alexandria and Bogalusa.
Luke won the race, caught COVID and died five days before he was to take office.
He and Letlow had two small children.
Letlow, saying she wanted “to pick up the torch” from her husband, won in a special election to replace him. She won reelection twice.
In January, Trump turned Cassidy’s world upside down by announcing his endorsement of her for the Senate. Trump wanted a viable candidate to defeat Cassidy because the senator had voted to convict the president of inciting a riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump endorsed Letlow three days after the deadline passed for Cassidy to leave the Republican Party and run for reelection as an independent.
With a bigger war chest, Cassidy attacked her in the primary for her support of diversity, equity and inclusion programs when she applied to be the president in Monroe. She said she now realized that the program “was hijacked by the radical left.”
Cassidy also attacked her for carrying out stock trades without reporting them within 45 days, as required by congressional rules. She acknowledged the violation but said her broker makes the transactions without her input.
Even though Cassidy badly outspent Letlow, she ran first in the May 16 primary with 45% of the vote. State Treasurer John Fleming finished second with 28% to advance with Letlow to the closed Republican runoff. Cassidy was out of the race, to Trump’s glee.
During the runoff campaign, a super PAC funded by Trump and Landry, the Accountability Project, attacked Fleming with ads that he called “dishonest” and “misleading.” Fleming called on Letlow to disavow the ads. She would not do so.
Some polls projected a close election or even a Fleming victory. Instead, Letlow won the June 27 runoff with 56.8% to Fleming’s 43.2%.
What’s next?
Letlow began the general election campaign as the prohibitive favorite in a state where Republicans hold all statewide offices and two-thirds of the seats in the Legislature.
After Davis showed greater-than-expected strength with the strong early vote turnout in late October, the Accountability Project resurfaced with an attack ad that included an AI-generated image of Davis that took up more and more of the screen. Many of his supporters called it a racist trope.
Another pro-Letlow super PAC, Save American Freedom, sent texts on Monday calling on voters to support Letlow “to stop Chuck Schumer from taking over the U.S. Senate.”
In the meantime, Letlow stuck to a positive message in her TV ads, promising to fight insurance companies and FEMA to hold down rates and to prevent “Communist China” from buying land in Louisiana.
Davis defeated two other candidates in the Democratic primary and runoff, Nick Albares and Gary Crockett. Both endorsed him in the general election.
Cassidy and Fleming didn’t endorse Letlow.
In the days leading up to Tuesday, political insiders predicted privately that if Davis ran a strong campaign and lost, that would encourage a serious Democrat to jump into next year’s governor’s race. Until now, no Democrat has stepped forth, and Gov. Jeff Landry is a heavy favorite for reelection.
With the Senate election over, attention will begin to turn to the governor’s race.
Staff writer Haley Miller contributed to this story.