US Rep. Julia Letlow, endorsed by Trump, wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Louisiana on Saturday, giving President Donald Trump the win after he endorsed her to replace GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Letlow, who was endorsed by Trump, defeated state Treasurer John Fleming in a runoff between the two candidates after they finished ahead of Cassidy in the May 16 Republican primary.

Read more: Live results: Louisiana primary runoff

Letlow has pledged her loyalty to Trump in a race in which Cassidy, who voted to convict the president on impeachment charges in 2021, has spent a year working to stop Trump from going after him. She promised to work alongside Trump to advance his agenda.

“I am filled with gratitude for the greatest president this country has ever had, Donald J. Trump,” Letlow told supporters at an election night watch party in Baton Rouge. “I am also very grateful for your endorsement.”

Letlow’s win caps Trump’s efforts in early 2026 to shore up Republican challengers to GOP lawmakers who disagreed with him and replace them with others more loyal. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and five Indiana senators lost their re-election bids last month to GOP rivals they supported.

However, Trump-backed candidates lost in two GOP gubernatorial primaries in June: Rep. Randy Feenstra on June 2 in Iowa, to businessman Zach Lane; and Georgia Lt. Gov. Bert Jones on June 16 to billionaire Rick Jackson. Both winners were outsiders competing with establishment favorites.

Letlow is now the front-runner to succeed Cassidy in a state that Trump won in 2024 by 22 percentage points. Letlow would become Louisiana’s first Republican state senator if elected.

Her supporters cheered as she took to the stage in Baton Rouge. An attendee let out a scream a few minutes ago after seeing on television that the Associated Press had called the race.

Letlow has been in the House since 2021. Her husband, Luke Letlow, died of COVID-19 complications after being elected to Congress in 2020, and she won a special election to fill the seat.

It was Gov. Jeff Landry, whom Letlow also thanked, who began advocating for her with Trump last year. It took until January for the president to endorse her, announcing it before she announced her candidacy.

She finished first in last month’s vote with about 45%, compared with about 28% for Fleming and about 25% for Cassidy. Letlow and Fleming advanced to Saturday’s runoff because no one won a majority that day.

For some voters, endorsing Trump was all that mattered.

“Mrs. Trump all the way,” said Barbara Dufresne, 67, of Marrero. She added that she knew little about Letlow but was counting on the president to reduce health care costs and increase her social safety net. “I always vote for what Trump wants.”

Letlow had the advantages of spending

Letlow’s success on May 16, campaign spending on her behalf and support from prominent Republicans stand her in good stead in the runoff. Landry and U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise have also endorsed it.

Fleming, a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus while in Congress, later served in Trump’s first administration. He reminded voters that he did not resign after the attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

During the campaign, he made appeals to those who identify closely with the president’s “Make America Great Again” movement, saying his voting record was more conservative than Letlow’s. His ads described him as MAGA “long before it was cool.”

Read more: Trump-backed Julia Letlow faces John Fleming in Louisiana Senate runoff

Fleming told voters he was denied access to Trump to gain support from Landry’s allies in the White House. Fleming said he recently phoned Trump and reminded the president who he was.

“You said no one was more loyal to you than me,” Fleming recounted during a campaign stop in June. “He said, ‘You’re great! Why didn’t you call?’

The two campaigns have spent similarly on ads, nearly $1 million each, since the May 16 primary. But the super PAC backing Letlow led all the spending, accounting for $4.1 million in the past six weeks, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.

Fleming attacked Letlow on DEI, criticizing him for his AI video

Fleming’s ads highlighted Letlow’s previous public support for diversity, equity and inclusion policy, which Trump had tried to eliminate. Letlow, the former college administrator, said she supported DEI while interviewing for president of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020, but said this year she was opposed to it.

Fleming reposted an AI-generated video on the social media platform The fake photo of Letlow also references her husband, who died due to complications from the coronavirus.

Fleming said he didn’t make the video “but it’s being circulated in Louisiana for a reason.”

Letlow condemned sharing the video as “disgraceful and indefensible,” mainly because it mentioned her husband. She thanked her late husband on Saturday and also introduced her fiancé, Kevin Ainsworth, a Baton Rouge lobbyist. The couple was engaged at the White House in December.

Despite the campaign rancor, Letlow thanked Fleming and said they had an enjoyable phone conversation after the race was called in her favor.

Watch: Louisiana Sen. Cassidy’s primary challenge tests Trump’s grip on the Republican Party

“This primary is over, now we move on to the general election,” Fleming told his supporters. “And we want to continue making America strong by sending the best of the best there.”

Letlow emphasized key priorities for social conservatives, particularly her support for national legislation banning transgender women and girls from competing in school sports.

Fleming focused most of his campaign on opposing carbon capture and sequestration, the process of injecting carbon dioxide waste underground to reduce industrial pollution. The construction of the technology, including planned pipelines, has sparked backlash in rural Louisiana communities and divided the state’s Republican Party.

Fleming said such projects violate private property rights and that federal government support for the technology is a waste.

Democrats choose Davis as their nominee for Senate

In the Democratic primary, Jimmie Davis, a northeastern Louisiana crop farmer, defeated Gary Crockett, a Navy veteran and business executive. Both have encouraged addressing the cost of living and protecting social safety nets.

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.