Governors who lose their home region probably won’t win re-election, and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry may just become the latest to learn this lesson.

A new JMC Analytics poll released Wednesday shows Landry’s favorability has collapsed to 39 percent statewide—a six-point drop since the last survey—while his unfavorability has surged nine points to 53 percent. He’s 14 points underwater overall. For a first-term governor with his eyes on a second term, those numbers are catastrophic.

But the real problem for Landry’s political team: In the Lafayette region—which includes Lafayette and several surrounding parishes that make up Acadiana—he’s polling at 51 percent unfavorable to just 45 percent favorable. Jeff Landry is underwater by six points in his own home region.

This is Acadiana—a deep red, conservative part of the state that should be backing their hometown guy. It’s the kind of place where a Republican governor with Landry’s profile should be cruising comfortably in the mid-50s on favorability. Instead, he’s losing ground where he should be strongest.

Insurance and Redistricting

There are two reasons why voter support might be collapsing right now: Landry’s disastrous optics on insurance and tort reform, and his actions on the congressional map now at the center of a Supreme Court case.

On the insurance side of things, I have written a lot, and I have heard almost nothing but discontent with how the governor handled the most recent legislative session—particularly his alliance with trial lawyers in Louisiana. Landry went on a highly publicized hunting trip with them. He pushed socialist price controls. He lied to the legislature when he told them, “Put a bill on my desk, and I’ll sign it.”

On the redistricting side, look at what Landry did to give Cleo Fields a seat in Congress, and what he’s been saying about it.

In early 2024, after federal courts ruled Louisiana’s congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power, Landry urged the legislature to create a second majority-Black district. He called a special session in his first hours as governor specifically to redraw the map. He signed the bill. His administration defended it in court.

The new map created a serpentine 6th Congressional District stretching more than 200 miles from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, explicitly designed to unseat Congressman Garret Graves—who had the temerity to endorse one of Landry’s gubernatorial opponents and failed to sufficiently support Steve Scalise’s and Mike Johnson’s speaker bids. The map worked as intended: Cleo Fields won the seat, and Graves was politically kneecapped.

But then a group calling themselves “non-African Americans” sued, claiming the new map was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The case went to the Supreme Court. And Jeff Landry suddenly discovered he’d been against his own map all along.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill—Landry’s successor in that office—filed briefs arguing that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. The state stopped defending the map it had just created and joined the plaintiffs challenging it. Nancy Landry, the Secretary of State, tried to get oral argument time at the Supreme Court to attack the map the governor’s administration had championed months earlier.

Now, Landry is giving interviews claiming the justices are “getting ready to make a big change” and celebrating the potential gutting of Section 2 as overdue. He’s positioning himself as a champion of limiting race-conscious redistricting—the same governor who signed a race-conscious redistricting bill less than two years ago.

The Political Calculation

Landry sees the same numbers you’re reading. He knows his favorability has cratered. He understands that 54 percent of Louisiana voters believe the state is heading in the wrong direction, up from 47 percent in the previous poll. He recognizes that losing Acadiana means losing any statewide re-election campaign.

So he’s gambling that if the Supreme Court guts Section 2—which could allow Republicans to redraw as many as 19 additional congressional districts nationwide to favor GOP candidates—he can claim credit with conservative voters frustrated by what they see as racial gerrymandering. The fact that he created and defended the map now at issue doesn’t seem to matter.

Neither does the bipartisan coalition—Black Democrats seeking representation, white Republicans seeking to eliminate Garret Graves—that Landry led during the 2024 redistricting special session.

The governor wants it three ways: take credit with minority voters for creating the second majority-Black district when it served his purposes, take credit with conservative voters for potentially eliminating it when the politics shifted, and avoid accountability for the obvious opportunism.

The Larger Pattern

The redistricting flip-flop fits a broader pattern of governance-by-political-calculation that Louisiana voters are recognizing and rejecting.

The poll shows Landry’s “very favorable” rating has dropped from 25 percent to just 19 percent—a sign that even among his base, enthusiasm is waning. Meanwhile, his “very unfavorable” rating has jumped from 31 percent to 39 percent, indicating intensifying opposition that goes beyond typical partisan polarization.

This is what happens when voters watch their governor reverse course on major policy positions, not because the facts changed or because he gained new insights, but purely because the political winds shifted. It breeds cynicism, reflected in that 54 percent “wrong direction” number.

Landry came into office with significant political capital. He won his gubernatorial race with a first-round majority in a crowded field—an impressive feat. He had the backing of the Republican legislative supermajority. Eighteen months later, he’s underwater statewide and losing ground in Acadiana. He squandered political capital through the transparent maneuvering on display in the redistricting saga.

What Happens Next

Landry has already called legislators back for a special session beginning October 23 to adjust election schedules in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling. Depending on what the Court says—and when they say it—Louisiana could be redrawing congressional maps yet again before the 2026 elections.

If the Court issues a narrow ruling, Landry will claim vindication while scrambling to explain away his prior positions. If it’s a broad ruling gutting Section 2, he’ll take a victory lap and position himself as having been on the right side all along, hoping voters forget he spent the first year of his administration on the opposite side.

But these poll numbers suggest Louisiana voters are paying closer attention than Landry thinks. They’re watching the shell game. And they’re not impressed.

The poll also reveals that 59 percent of Louisiana voters want to repeal the recently passed closed primary system and return to open primaries, with 71 percent supporting at least delaying implementation beyond 2026. In other words, on multiple fronts, Louisiana voters are rejecting the direction Landry has taken the state.

Can Landry Recover?

Jeff Landry is learning what every politician eventually learns: you can play political games with policy positions, but voters aren’t required to play along. You can reverse course on major issues when it’s convenient, but you can’t reverse course on your credibility.

The redistricting saga is cynical political gamesmanship. The insurance reform debacle was naked pandering to big political money. But as a result of that, Landry is 14 points underwater statewide and six points underwater in Acadiana. Those numbers will either force him to govern differently or doom his re-election prospects. The redistricting reversal suggests he doesn’t understand the distinction.

The Supreme Court will rule eventually—probably by June, though Secretary of State Nancy Landry has asked for a decision by early January to avoid disrupting the 2026 election schedule. The ruling will shape voting rights litigation for a generation. But for Jeff Landry, it’s less about constitutional principles and more about whether he can convince Louisiana voters he was on the right side all along.

Right now, those voters aren’t buying it. And they’re not buying it in Acadiana, of all places. That’s a problem you can’t redistrict your way out of.