Julia Letlow

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow rode President Donald Trump’s forceful support and an avalanche of campaign spending in the final week to decisively win the Republican runoff Saturday to be Louisiana’s next senator, after late polls had suggested the race might be neck-and-neck.

Trump didn’t just endorse Letlow. He lavished praise on her in two campaign videos and held a rally by phone with Letlow on Thursday that attracted 98,000 listeners, an official with her campaign said on Sunday. That was more than half the 179,000 votes she collected on Saturday.

Trump’s super PAC, Securing American Greatness, also contributed $1 million to an outside group, the Accountability Project, that battered state Treasurer John Fleming, Letlow’s Republican opponent, with a barrage of negative ads.

“I can’t wait to work with him (Trump) over on the Senate side,” Letlow, 45, told reporters at her Baton Rouge victory party after clinching the Republican victory.

“Great News!!!” Trump posted Saturday night on Truth Social. “Julia Letlow WON in Louisiana, beating conclusively a very strong and smart opponent.”

Davis secures Democratic nomination

Her triumph sets up a Nov. 3 general election against Jamie Davis, a farmer from northeast Louisiana, who overwhelmingly won the Democratic nomination over business owner Gary Crockett.

“We planted good seeds in fertile soils, and we started to harvest last night,” Davis said in an interview on Sunday.

Davis, 55, faces an uphill battle in a state where no Democrat has been elected to the Senate since 2008, and Republicans hold all of the statewide offices and two-thirds of the seats in the Legislature. In the runoff, 316,538 people voted in the Republican runoff, while 196,190 voted in the Democratic one.

Davis said he is undaunted by the naysayers and said he will broaden his focus to appeal to Republican voters who could not vote for him in the just-concluded closed primary elections.

“Dr. Fleming’s voters are out there,” he said. “So are Dr. Cassidy’s voters and Mr. Crockett’s voters.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy was eliminated in the May 16 primary when he finished third in the Republican primary. Cassidy had angered Trump and MAGA voters when he voted to convict the president of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

The overall turnout of registered voters in the runoff was 17%, according to Ed Chervenak, a political science professor at the University of New Orleans. That was down from 28% in the May primary.

According to unofficial returns from the Secretary of State’s office, Davis defeated Crockett, 79.9%-20.1%. That result was not a surprise since Davis had much more money and important Democratic endorsements.

“We’re talking grassroots, pure grassroots, different organizations coming together to say, ‘this man has it, this man has what we want to see in the person who represents us,’” said Bonnie Byland, an organizer with Indivisible Baton Rouge.

At Davis’ election night party in Baton Rouge, she added, “There was tremendous energy.”

James Carville, the famed Democratic political strategist, said of Davis, “He has some guts and moxie. He seems to be a successful farmer, which is a pretty good profile for a Democratic candidate. His challenge will be raising money. Democrats have no power in Louisiana. In politics, you can have the best bio in the world, but if you don’t have money, you can’t tell your story.”

Behind Letlow’s convincing win

Letlow defeated Fleming, 56.8% to 43.2%. That 13.6-point margin was bigger than most political analysts predicted. The Letlow campaign, for example, expected she would win by six or seven points, the campaign official said.

New Orleans pollster Greg Rigamer, who had conducted weekly surveys throughout the race, won public attention when he found in the final days of the election that Fleming had closed most or all of the 17-point margin that Letlow had coming out of the May 16 primary, 45%-28%.

Rigamer released a poll showing that Fleming held a 1-point advantage among those who voted early in the Republican runoff but that she held a six-point advantage among those expected to vote on Saturday.

Rigamer expected Letlow to win the runoff — but in “a squeaker.”

Fleming’s pollster, John Couvillon, reported that his poll several days before the election showed Fleming up, 45%-40%.

The Letlow campaign saved its heaviest advertising buys for the final three weeks of the campaign, when more voters would be tuning into the race.

Outside groups also stepped up their advertising. Two of them – American Mission and Save American Freedom – spent over $1 million total to promote Letlow.

Another group, the Accountability Project – run by allies of Gov. Jeff Landry – spent over $4 million on attack ads against Fleming – TV ads, radio spots, mailers and texts.

At 12:52 p.m. on Wednesday, voters received a text message from the group: “President Trump has sealed our border and is keeping illegal aliens out. But RINO John Fleming has found a workaround to bring more Mexicans into our country his taxpayer-funded immigrant bus system.”

At 10:43 a.m. on Thursday: “While you bust your butt paying taxes, John Fleming and his family were globe-trotting the world on your dime, and lobbyist money.”

At 1:12 p.m. on Thursday: “Fleming is a fraud who can’t be trusted.”

At 3:06 p.m. on Friday: “John Fleming bragged about working side-by-side with Dr. Fauci on the COVID Task Force, even sharing with the media that they ‘very frequently’ met together as they pushed forced vaccines and forced masks on our kids, and shut down businesses.” The text ended with photos of Fleming and Fauci.

Landry raised money for the Accountability Project and Hope in Action – which transferred big dollars to the Accountability Project.

“We ran a strong campaign,” said Jay Connaughton, a St. Tammany Parish-based media strategist who headed the Accountability Project. “It wasn’t just about the money. It was about the effective message. John Fleming was a flawed candidate. It made our job a lot easier.”

Fleming repeatedly said the ads were dishonest.

He declined to be interviewed on Sunday. Letlow did not respond to interview requests.

Letlow campaign volunteers made 100,000 calls to likely Letlow voters on the weekend before the election and 91,000 calls on election day, said the Letlow campaign official.

Where Letlow won

According to a post-election analysis by Rigamer, Letlow ended up carrying 49 parishes, while Fleming won 14 – Orleans Parish and 13 more in a corridor that stretched from northwest Louisiana to Allen and Beauregard parishes, the area he represented in the U.S. House from 2009-17.

“She just dominated,” Rigamer said on Sunday.

Fleming and Letlow tied in Bossier Parish, each with 4,351 votes, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Couvillon, who acknowledged on Sunday that he misfired on his final poll, said Fleming’s campaign aimed in the runoff to receive 2/3 of the Cassidy voters from the primary – but collected only 45%.

“The Cassidy vote concluded there wasn’t a dime’s difference between the two runoff contenders, so they split their vote,” he said.