We’re roughly two months away from the GOP primary for the US Senate election here in Louisiana, and this race has started to heat up over the past several weeks. Ever since Congresswoman Julia Letlow entered the race back in January, we’re now down to three major candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Louisiana’s US Senate seat: establishment incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy, Congresswoman Julia Letlow, and state Treasurer John Fleming.
One of the notable developments in this race is how Louisiana’s Governor Jeff Landry has weighed in on the US Senate election by endorsing Letlow in this race. But instead of attacking Cassidy, Landry has gone all in on attacking Letlow’s more conservative opponent, Fleming.
On Monday, Governor Jeff Landry published a video lambasting John Fleming by claiming – and it’s a hotly-disputed claim, to be charitable – that Fleming supports big business’s carbon capture projects.
Landry’s backing of Letlow isn’t unique to him. Former Senate candidates Kathy Seiden and Eric Skrmetta did the same, and so did President Trump. But there are people, and not just in Fleming’s camp, who will tell you that Landry meddling in this Senate election is just another example of him cutting backroom deals that harm the citizens of Louisiana—from helping create a Congressional map specifically for corrupt Cleo Fields to go back to Washington, to allowing Meta and Amazon to create monstrous AI data centers that will change the energy and water profile of north Louisiana, and other controversial items.
And backing a moderate politician like Julia Letlow over a conservative veteran like John Fleming is another data point for the narrative that the governor is trying to straddle the middle. The insertion of Letlow into the race, and most think that was Landry’s doing – he talked her into running, and he wrangled the Trump endorsement to get her into it – shrank the Senate field and made a lot of conservative voters dissatisfied with their choices in wishing to replace Cassidy with a young, articulate fighter who could stay in the Senate and do good work for a long time.
Instead, there is a lot of concern that Letlow will go to Washington and park herself in the Senate for the next 30 years, becoming a captive of the DC swamp and ultimately voting like Lisa Murkowski or Susan Collins – using the power of incumbency to insulate herself from conservative voters looking to improve on Cassidy’s wishy-washy performance.
Replacing Cassidy with a real conservative was the goal. But to lots of people, your author included, Landry has turned the GOP primary for the US Senate election into a proxy war about his political influence. Will Louisiana Republicans fall in line with Landry’s kingmaking by voting for his ally Julia Letlow, or will they support an independent conservative voice like John Fleming? Only time will tell in the next two months.
Louisiana already has its own issues as a state—from mass immigration to insurance affordability. We could use a full-time Governor who actually focuses on putting the people of Louisiana first rather than one who unnecessarily meddles in federal primaries and attacks conservative candidates.
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Nathan Koenig is a frequent contributor to RVIVR.com, a national conservative political site affiliated with The Hayride. Follow his writing on the Louisiana First Standard Substack, on Twitter (X) @LAFirstStandard, on Tik Tok @la.first.standard & on Instagram @lafirststandard. Email him here: louisianafirststandard@proton.me
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