She’s a buddy of ours and she’s been a great state representative in the Louisiana House, and now she’s jumping into the arena…

Louisiana State Representative and House Ways & Means Chairman Julie Emerson today announced her campaign for the United States Senate, calling for a new generation of conservative leadership rooted in optimism about America’s future.

“I’m running for the United States Senate because Louisiana deserves a senator who can lead, deliver, and help rebuild America’s confidence,” Emerson said. “For the first time in years, the future feels brighter than the past.”

Emerson, 37, will challenge incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy, who, after voting to convict President Trump on impeachment charges, is the most vulnerable incumbent in the Senate.

“Voters want a strong conservative senator who can get things done — someone focused on results, not rhetoric. I’m running to bring home real outcomes for Louisiana: infrastructure investment, new jobs, and a seat at the table where decisions get made.”

Emerson serves as Chairman of the Louisiana House Ways & Means Committee and a leader in passing many of Governor Jeff Landry’s major conservative reforms.

Emerson has established herself as one of the most consequential legislators by leading Louisiana’s $1 billion income-tax cut, authoring the LA GATOR universal school-choice program, and creating the state’s new party-primary system that empowers voters to choose strong, principled nominees. She also passed legislation ending the state’s outdated franchise tax and lowering the corporate income tax, spurring more than $70 billion in new economic investment across Louisiana. In her second term, she carried the bill in the House that ended abortion in Louisiana.

Born in the rural North Louisiana town of Homer and raised in Carencro, Emerson was first elected at age 27, becoming the youngest Republican woman ever to serve in the Louisiana Legislature. A small-business owner and lifelong conservative, she has earned recognition as a “Most Valuable Policymaker” by LABI, a “Guardian of Small Business” by NFIB, and holds an A rating from the NRA and a 100 percent lifetime score with Louisiana Right to Life. She was recently named “LegisGator of the Year” by the Southwest Louisiana Chamber of Commerce at its annual “LegisGator” luncheon, and has been named Legislator of the Year by the LA Fraternal Order of Police and the LA Fire Chiefs Association.

She is a graduate of Westminster Christian Academy (Opelousas, LA), the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Bachelor of Science) and the University of South Carolina (Master of Business Administration). In 2011, she founded Lagniappe Communications Group, a public relations and media strategy firm.

“Our country doesn’t need more ineffective legislative outrage — it needs vision and conviction,” Emerson said. “America has turned a corner. The era ahead will be defined by conservative leaders who are ready to rebuild, renew, and lead this nation toward its brightest days.”

With Emerson’s entry, we now have a pretty full boat of major candidates running against Bill Cassidy in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate next year – John Fleming, Blake Miguez, Eric Skrmetta and now Emerson cover a lot of geography between them and offer a bunch of different styles and ideological leanings, all of which would be, we’d say, more conservative than Cassidy.

What do we think of this from a competitive standpoint? Well, for one thing Julie is a little late getting in, which seems like a dumb thing to say considering that it’s still 2025. But qualifying is in January, though they’re likely going to move it back a little in this legislative special session currently happening at the Capitol. So with the others already in and having raised money, it seems like Emerson might be behind the eight ball a little with respect to that.

She’s perhaps a little behind on name recognition as well, which would put a very serious premium on fundraising. Emerson is going to need to get out fast with a lot of money and an ad campaign.

And she’ll need to be prepared, because the other candidates in the race – and based on how it’s gone so far, we’d expect Fleming to be first – will attack her as a tax-raiser. Emerson is the chair of House Ways and Means, and she carried the tax reform legislation in last year’s special session which resulted in a tax swap that raised the sales tax rate to five cents.

If you’re Team Emerson you’re going to note that you’ve also shrunk the state income tax rate. Which is true. It becomes sort of an “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” kind of thing.

We really like Julie. We think she’d make a great senator, which we think is true of all of Cassidy’s challengers. The race is still very much wide open and nothing has changed our impression that so long as Louisiana’s current party-primary-with-a-runoff system isn’t blown up by the Legislature in this special session or next year’s regular session, whoever makes the runoff with Cassidy will ultimately win the election.

Could that be Emerson? Yes. Will it be? We’ll want to see how she does raising money against Miguez and the others before we’ll make that judgment.