Letlow narrowly wins Senate seat in Louisiana

GOP Rep. Julia Letlow is projected to narrowly win her Louisiana Senate race, according to Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).

She will be the first Republican woman to represent the Pelican State after she defeated Democratic nominee Jamie Davis in the contest to replace outgoing Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

She notched about 50 percent of the vote with 100 percent of the vote reported as of early Wednesday morning. Davis lost by just under 2 percentage points in the solid red state.

Letlow was widely expected to win the seat since emerging from the June primary runoff. In the first round of the primary, she and another challenger backed by President Trump — state Treasurer John Fleming — defeated Cassidy in the GOP primary.

The then-incumbent had battled with Trump over his vote to convict the former president in 2021 and later for the senator’s critical view of the president’s nominees for top administration posts, especially Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.

The Democrat, a farmer and former police juror, polled behind the GOP nominee for most of the race.

Letlow, 45, was a higher education administrator when her husband Luke was elected to the state’s 5th Congressional District in 2020. He died from complications of COVID-19 just weeks before he was set to take office.

She then ran and won in the special election for his seat in April 2021. She was reelected twice and announced she would run for Senate in January 2026.

In the House, she has pushed for education-related measures including the Parents Bill of Rights to give parents more consent over public school curricula, which passed the House in 2023. She has also served on the Appropriations Committee.

DDHQ rated the race as likely Republican ahead of Election Day.