Julia Letlow Wins Louisiana Senate GOP Runoff, Heads to November as Heavy Favorite

LAFAYETTE, La. — Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican primary runoff for U.S. Senate Saturday night, defeating state Treasurer John Fleming and locking up the GOP nomination for a race she is heavily favored to win in November.

NBC News projected Letlow’s victory shortly after polls closed at 9 p.m. She will face Democrat Jamie Davis, a farmer who won his party’s runoff Saturday night, in the general election.

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The win caps a primary cycle built around one defining question: what happens to Republicans who cross Donald Trump. The answer, at least in Louisiana, is now settled. Letlow led the first round of voting in May with nearly 45 percent, followed by Fleming at 28 percent and incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy at about 25 percent. Saturday’s runoff determined which of the top two finishers would carry the party banner into the fall.

Trump’s Endorsement Proved Decisive

Trump endorsed Letlow before she formally announced her candidacy in January and treated the race as a personal priority. He held a telephone rally on her behalf Thursday night, calling her “a fearless champion” who has been “tested at the highest level.” Going into election day, Letlow carried endorsements from Trump, Gov. Jeff Landry, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Rep. Clay Higgins. It was a coalition Fleming was never able to match.

Fleming ran hard as a Trump loyalist in his own right, pointing to his eight years in the House and four years in the Trump administration as proof he had the experience and the conservative record for the job. Without the president’s backing, he could not close the gap.

Who Is Julia Letlow?

Letlow, 45, is a former university administrator with a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida. Her path to Congress is unlike most. Her husband, Luke Letlow, won Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District seat in 2020 but died of COVID-19 complications in December of that year, weeks before he was sworn in. Julia Letlow ran in the 2021 special election to fill the vacancy, becoming the first Republican woman ever to represent Louisiana in Congress and winning with nearly 65 percent of the vote.

She went on to serve on the House Appropriations Committee and compiled a consistent record of support for Trump’s agenda. At Thursday’s tele-rally, she pledged that once she reaches the Senate, she will “never back down from fighting for your America First agenda.” She also staked out a clear position separating herself from Fleming on the filibuster. Letlow said she is “the only candidate in this race” who supports eliminating the Senate filibuster to pass Trump’s Save America Act, a sweeping overhaul of U.S. election law that would broadly ban mail-in voting and require voter identification.

What Happens Next

Letlow goes into November as the prohibitive favorite. Trump carried Louisiana by 22 points in 2024, and the state has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Mary Landrieu’s last win in 2008. Davis, who defeated Navy veteran and defense contractor Gary Crockett in the Democratic runoff Saturday night, will face long odds in a state that has moved steadily red for two decades.

Saturday’s race also carried a structural footnote. It was Louisiana’s first U.S. Senate election conducted under the new closed partisan primary system signed into law by Gov. Landry in 2024, replacing the jungle primary format the state had used since 2010.

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