We’ll reserve our comments until afterward, but we have a couple of press releases to show you, both from Julia Letlow’s campaign.

The first one is about a BIG campaign cash haul in the first quarter of the year…

LETLOW ENTITIES TO REPORT MASSIVE HAUL FOR Q1
Trump-Endorsed Conservative Builds Massive Financial Momentum as Cassidy Collapses

BATON ROUGE, LA – Congresswoman Julia Letlow and aligned entities will report approximately $8 million for the first quarter of 2026, a major show of financial strength for the Trump-endorsed conservative as she builds momentum heading into the final stretch of Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race.

Letlow will report over $4.3 million directly to campaign entities, including nearly $1.9 million raised in 70 days and a $2.4m transfer from her congressional account. Pro-Letlow outside groups are reported to have raised $3.8 million, bringing total resources for the quarter to approximately $8 million.

Letlow for Louisiana will report more than $2,275,000 cash on hand, giving the campaign substantial resources for the final stretch before the May 16 Republican primary.

“I am humbled by the support pouring in from every corner of our state,” said Congresswoman Julia Letlow. “Louisianans are ready for a senator who stands with President Trump and fights for our families, our values, and the future we owe our children. I am grateful for every supporter who has stepped up, and I will keep working to earn every vote between now and May 16.”

Bill Cassidy and his allies have spent more than $10 million attacking Letlow since she entered the race, but those attacks have failed to stop her momentum. Multiple independent polls now show Letlow leading the race while Cassidy has fallen to third place.

“Bill Cassidy and his never-Trump allies lit ten million dollars on fire trying to stop Julia, and they have nothing to show for it,” said Parker Carey, Campaign Manager for Letlow for Louisiana. “Louisiana Republicans have made clear they want the Trump-endorsed conservative, not the senator who voted to convict President Trump.”

And then Team Letlow decided to look down its nose at John Fleming’s campaign…

FLEMING RAISES $45,000 IN Q1, CONTINUES SELF-LOAN SCHEME TO PROP UP FAILING CAMPAIGN

BATON ROUGE, LA — Newly filed Federal Election Commission reports show that John Fleming only raised $45,000 in total contributions during the first quarter of 2026, a humiliating showing for a candidate who has been running for United States Senate for more than a year.

Instead of building real donor support, Fleming once again turned to his own checkbook. In the first quarter alone, he loaned his campaign another $2.5 million, bringing his total candidate loans this election to $10.655 million.

At the same time, Fleming’s campaign paid him back $1.87 million this quarter, bringing total repayments to $7.499 million for the cycle. The scheme is now obvious: Fleming writes himself a check at the end of the quarter to boost his numbers, then pays himself right back.

While Fleming is recycling his own money to keep a failing campaign afloat, Letlow and aligned entities will report approximately $8 million for the first quarter of 2026. Letlow will report more than $4.3 million directly to campaign entities, including nearly $1.9 million raised in just 70 days and a $2.4 million transfer from her congressional account, while pro-Letlow outside groups are reported to have raised $3.8 million. Letlow for Louisiana will also report more than $2.275 million cash on hand heading into the final stretch before the May 16 Republican primary.

Julia Letlow is the Trump-endorsed conservative in the May 16 Republican primary for United States Senate.

What to make of this? Well, the first thing that came to mind was an old James Coburn line from Payback, one of our all-time favorite movies…

That’s just mean, man!

The thing is, though, Letlow’s campaign isn’t the first one pointing out Fleming’s Potemkin campaign finance situation. Bill Cassidy’s campaign did the same thing a few months ago. We’ve also talked about this issue of plugging in this $2 million of his own money to make the campaign finance numbers look good and then taking it back out.

The primary is on May 16, so Fleming actually raised $45,000 in the last full quarter of the cycle? That’s not a major-candidate number.

Fleming is doing all the retail-politics things. It’s not like there’s no activity coming out of that campaign. But you can’t run for the U.S. Senate on $45,000. And it’s pretty clear Fleming isn’t going to spend that $2 million, other than maybe shaving a few bucks off the edges of that block of cash, mostly on social media.

What amazes us is that there’s a grand opportunity here to knock Bill Cassidy completely out of the runoff. Even the national media people are starting to pick up on the fact that Cassidy is in a lot of danger of running third. And there is this crazy story about the NRSC call a week or so ago in which Cassidy was screaming about not getting more resources only to get brutally slapped down by the call’s organizer, who chided him for voting in favor of President Trump’s impeachment back in 2021.

The NRSC is an incumbent protection outfit, but Cassidy probably ought to have known better than to start that fight. They’re set up to defend Republicans against Democrats; from the NRSC’s point of view it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference if Cassidy loses to Letlow – and not much more if he loses to Fleming. Especially when there is little to no chance of the GOP nominee losing that seat to a Democrat.

They’ve already given Cassidy a fortune, he’s blown it on attack ads against Letlow that aren’t working, and he’s demanding money which is needed for races in Ohio, North Carolina, Maine, Texas, Minnesota and Michigan, which are places that will decide who’s going to hold the Senate’s majority. What did Cassidy think the reaction was going to be?

At this point his only hope is to climb into the runoff some sort of way and then have Team Letlow and Team Cassidy be in such a hot war that the voters of the third-place finisher refuse to vote for Cassidy’s runoff opponent. But honestly, that isn’t very realistic. Whoever would make the runoff with Cassidy will crush him – and the NRSC  people he’s begging for money damned well know it.

You would think Fleming would be dropping money left and right on an effort at beating Cassidy into third place. We really aren’t seeing much evidence he’s doing that. Not like Letlow is.

On the other hand, Election Day is a month away. Strategically, Fleming could defend it if he waited one more week before releasing the hounds.

What this rather snippy shot at Fleming’s finances seems to indicate, though, is that Letlow’s camp is already pivoting to a runoff which doesn’t include Cassidy. Whether they’re right or not, we find that significant.