In the final days of an increasingly divisive Senate Republican campaign, the race has come down to this: Can President Donald Trump and the avalanche of negative ads against treasurer John Fleming stem his momentum and give U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow the victory on Saturday?
most or all of Letlow’s 17-point advantage coming out of the May 16 primary.
“It’s dog close,” said Greg Rigamer, a New Orleans pollster who has done weekly surveys for super lobbyist Alton Ashy, a Letlow contributor.
With Fleming mounting a surprisingly strong challenge, Trump is stepping up his push for Letlow, and outside groups are launching a barrage of attacks against the treasurer.
Fleming said those moves indicate his political strength.
“They wouldn’t be doing this if they weren’t worried where they are,” Fleming said in an interview Wednesday. “In a certain odd way, it’s reassuring to us. They are spending millions and millions of dollars trying to save her campaign.”
Probable voters in the Republican runoff received texts Wednesday that contained a pro-Letlow message from Trump.
“With your vote, she will protect your borders, your paychecks, your jobs and your Second Amendment,” Trump said in the text, which was paid for by an outside group called .
Trump will participate in a “tele-rally” Thursday afternoon with Letlow, where supporters can call a toll-free number and listen in.
At the same time, an outside group associated with Gov. Jeff Landry is spending heavily to try to taint Fleming enough to give Letlow the edge. The anti-Fleming campaign calls him “a fraud” and says he supports the flow of “illegal aliens” across the Mexican border.
“Muchas gracias, John Fleming!” reads one side of a mailer featuring a brown-skinned man sporting gang-like tattoos of a marijuana leaf, a revolver and two skulls. “I voted” reads a red-white-and-blue sticker on his shirt.
, which is run by Landry’s campaign associates, sent the mailer to homes this week, as part of a deluge of anti-Fleming ads that are citing a 2008 campaign comment by Fleming, which he said was a slip of the tongue that he immediately corrected. Fleming said the ads are misleading since they don’t note his correction and his strong record on border security as a member of the House.
“I’ve never seen so much money being spent in the final 72 hours of the race. It’s just unbelievable,” said Fleming campaign strategist Roy Fletcher, who has worked on h campaigns since the 1970s.
Fletcher, nonetheless, predicted that Fleming would win narrowly, citing a poll by his campaign taken on Sunday and Monday of 600 likely runoff voters by John Couvillon that had the treasurer up, 45%-40%.
Parker Carey, Letlow’s campaign manager, said their poll has her leading by seven points.
“We are confident she is going to win,” he said.
While the Republican runoff has received most of the attention, farmer Jamie Davis and business owner Gary Crockett are facing off Saturday for the Democratic Party nod in a separate primary.
Davis led Crockett in the May 16 primary, 47% to 26%. During the campaign, Davis has raised $1.2 million, while Crockett has not collected any money. Davis has a full campaign staff — unlike Crockett — and has endorsements from the h Democratic Party, New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno and Indivisible NOLA, a grassroots group.
Davis and Crockett are both blasting Trump’s moves on Iraq, taxes, spending and immigration enforcement. The winner will advance to the Nov. 3 general election and be the first Black finalist for a Senate campaign in h since Reconstruction.
GOP battle by the numbers
On the Republican ledger, little distinguishes Fleming and Letlow on the issues, so each side has seized on old comments or past votes to paint the other as a “liberal,” an epithet among conservative voters. Both are pledging their fealty to Trump, although she has the president’s endorsement.
The expected overall low turnout of about 15% of voters is scrambling the analysis of who might win the Republican runoff and advance to the Nov. 3 election. Republicans and no-party voters who didn’t vote in the Democratic Party primary are eligible to vote in the Republican runoff.
Rigamer is projecting that 300,000 to 320,000 people overall will vote in the Republican runoff, based on the eight-day early voting period that ended on Saturday.
He found that early voting for the runoff was down by 25% for Republicans and 50% for Democrats compared to early voting for the May 16 primary.
Rigamer conducted two polls on Monday and Tuesday.
In one, he surveyed 600 people who had already voted in the Republican runoff. The result: Fleming with 43.8% and Letlow with 42.5%. That’s a statistical tie since it was within 3.5 points of the margin of error.
In another poll, Rigamer surveyed 600 people who had voted in the May 16 Republican primary but hadn’t yet voted in the runoff. In that poll, Letlow led, 42.8% to 35.8%.
The two sets of numbers suggest that Letlow has the advantage, because early voting typically accounts for about one-third of the overall vote. But Rigamer cautioned that Letlow’s advantage on Saturday is likely to be lessened because of the projected lower turnout.
“It’s all about who gets their vote out,” the pollster said.
What to know about the candidates
Fleming was a family physician in Minden, east of Shreveport, when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2008 representing northwest h. Over the next eight years, he voted consistently against President Barack Obama’s initiatives and helped co-found the House Freedom Caucus, perhaps the most conservative wing within the Republican Party in Washington.
Fleming ran for the Senate in 2016, lost and went on to serve four years in the first Trump administration, including the final 10 months as the president’s deputy chief of staff. He was elected treasurer in 2023.
Fleming, 74, is banking on his grassroots network to turn out to overcome Letlow’s huge spending advantage.
“Fleming is capturing the outsider spirit to overturn the establishment,” said Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of h at Monroe. “This may indicate that the Trump brand is losing credence in h.”
Letlow, who has a doctorate from South Florida University, planned to spend her career in higher education. She was serving as a senior staffer at the University of h at Monroe when her husband Luke was elected to the House in 2020 — but then died from Covid five days before he took office.
Letlow captured the seat in a special election, won reelection in 2022 and 2024 and jumped into the Senate race in January after Trump endorsed her.
Letlow, 45, is banking on Trump and her support from Louisian’s political establishment.
She held a meet-and-greet Monday at the office of Jefferson Parish’s preeminent political consultant, Greg Buisson, and the elected officials in attendance included Sen. Kirk Talbot of River Ridge, Sen. Greg Miller of Norco, Rep. Laurie Schlegel of Metairie, Rep. Polly Thomas of Metairie, Rep. John Illg of Harahan, Rep. Mike Bayham of Chalmette, Rep. Kim Carver of Mandeville, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto and Plaquemines Parish President Keith Hinkel.
A pianist in the corner of the room played the refrain from Jimmy Davis’ “You Are My Sunshine” as Letlow was introduced.
“I got that unbelievable, unimaginable call from the Big Man, and I don’t mean the Lord,” Letlow told the crowd. “He encouraged me to run for the seat, and that meant the world to me.”