Trump endorsement looms over Louisiana GOP Senate runoff

Julia Letlow entered Saturday’s GOP runoff for Louisiana’s open Senate seat as the favorite after finishing with about 45% in the May 16 primary, while John Fleming took 28% and Bill Cassidy fell to about 25% and lost his shot at a third term. Trump’s endorsement loomed over the contest; he had backed Letlow before she entered the race in January and reissued that backing several times, including in a Thursday tele-rally where he called her a “fearless champion” for the state. Letlow answered with her own pitch to conservatives, casting the runoff as a choice between “a real conservative fighter or another career politician.”

Fleming tried to make the contest about his own credentials and his proximity to Trump. He served as Trump’s deputy chief of staff during the first term, spent eight years in Congress and ran for Senate in 2016, when he did not make the runoff that John Kennedy eventually won. With Cassidy out, Fleming argued that voters were no longer sorting through a three-way primary but weighing two sharply different Republican paths.

The May 16 primary was the state’s first closed congressional party primary since 2010, after a system backed by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Trump ally, helped block the crossover voting that had long complicated Louisiana contests. Cassidy still led Orleans Parish by nearly three-to-one and was the top vote-getter in the three most populous parishes, but Letlow’s strength in smaller rural parishes, especially in northeastern Louisiana and along the Mississippi border, carried her into the runoff.

Polls opened Saturday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. local time. The winner was set to face the Democratic nominee on Nov. 3, 2026, after Democrats held their own runoff between farmer Jamie Davis and Navy veteran Gary Crockett. Other runoff races on the ballot included contests for the Public Service Commission and the state board of education.