Good morning from the great state of Louisiana, where, suddenly, people realize that the U.S. Senate race to replace Bill Cassidy is a lot tighter than expected. And most folks did not even have this race on their radar because it's Louisiana and surely it wasn't at risk of falling, right?
Well, the only polling that's available in this race certainly makes it seem like it's close. Hart Research dropped a poll at the end of the week showing a 45-45 tie between Congresswoman Julia Letlow and Democrat candidate Jamie Davis.
The caveat? The Davis campaign commissioned the poll.
Hart research has the Louisiana Senate race tied I take this with a big grain of salt just like MT, SD polls but still … https://t.co/VrQ2VA6YlY
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) October 30, 2026
45-45 would mean 10 percent are undecided. Days before the election in a deep red state, that should raise all the red flags. In fact, I mentioned in a separate op-ed on my own Substack earlier this week that Republicans should be on red alert, even as I think Letlow still wins. Democrats, and in particular black voters, showed up at surprising levels during early voting. Black voters made up a higher percentage of the early vote than their overall registered voter percentage. That's a motivation issue.
On both sides. Let's start with the Democrats.
Black voters are a significant chunk of the Democrat base in Louisiana. And while they have not typically wielded power within their party infrastructure, in recent years that has started to change. Their voters feel more empowered than ever, and the party's candidate at the top of the ballot is a black farmer, business owner, gun owner, and a guy who comes across very well to a lot of voters, and not just black Democrats.
On top of that, Louisiana v. Callais appears to have been somewhat of a double-edged sword. Conservatives got a massive win in the Supreme Court with the Callais decision, but it took away a recently-created second majority-minority district in Louisiana, and black voters here are furious about it.
They are motivated to go out to the polls. The Republicans? Not so much right now.
The Congresswoman is a nice lady. She is utterly underwhelming on the stump and in her commercials. At a recent rally in the city where I live, a rally she held with Senator John Kennedy, several folks I spoke to left feeling less than enthusiastic. Again, at a rally that also featured John Kennedy. If you can't ride the energy he brings to an event, something is very wrong.
Letlow has several things working against her. The campaign has been horribly run, drawing on the assumption of and, frankly, entitlement to GOP votes and they have not done enough voter outreach. That comes after a brutal primary in which Letlow and a solid conservative, state treasurer and former Congressman John Fleming, went at each other and Fleming lost.
Letlow did not enter the race until after Gov. Jeff Landry convinced Donald Trump to endorse her, which he did before she declared her candidacy. Landry's own PACs did most of the fighting for her in the campaign. She barely introduced herself to voters and relied on the endorsement of Landry and Trump to escape the primary. Then she sat quietly and waited for the general election.
She has run ads on flood insurance and China buying farmland. Meanwhile, the biggest issues on voters' minds in Louisiana are data centers, a new SpaceX launch site, and the government signing NDAs to hide these projects until they're announced. Letlow also seems to have bought some stock in Meta after signing an NDA, though her campaign says she did not direct that purchase.
She has not connected with voters, who would be more than willing to side with her if she had done any sort of outreach beyond running against a Generic Democrat instead of Jamie Davis.
Now, back to that 10 percent undecided in Davis' poll. In all likelihood, that 10 percent are people who typically vote Republican, even if they aren't registered as Republicans. They may actually be registered Democrats who never changed their party affiliation when the state turned red but have always voted more center-right than center-left. There are a lot more of those in parts of this state than you might realize.
That 10 percent are (probably) not voting for Davis. That 10 percent are trying to decide whether to vote for Letlow or just stay home. It is Letlow's job to get them out, and she hasn't convinced them to yet. But, election day is usually much more Republican than Democrat when it comes to turnout, and there are plenty of those Republicans who will ultimately say they don't want to risk the Senate falling into the hands of an increasingly socialist Democrat Party.
But it's tight. Way tighter than it should be, and that is the fault of the Letlow campaign more than anyone else.