Trump’s Pick Julia Letlow Beats John Fleming in Louisiana

U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican Senate nomination after defeating state Treasurer John Fleming in a Saturday runoff, securing President Donald Trump a key win as he pushes candidates loyal to him to replace GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy. The race als

When Rep. Julia Letlow stepped onto the stage in Baton Rouge on Saturday night. the room erupted like the decision had already landed somewhere deeper than politics. For some supporters. it wasn’t just the runoff result—it was the feeling that President Donald Trump’s endorsement had finally pushed the state’s Senate path into place.

Letlow, a U.S. representative who has been in the House since 2021, won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Louisiana in a two-candidate runoff, defeating state Treasurer John Fleming. The win gives Trump a major pickup in his early effort to back challengers to Republican lawmakers who have not matched his agenda. including the promise of a replacement for GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2021, had spent a year working to keep Trump from going after him. In the May 16 GOP primary, Letlow finished ahead of Cassidy and Fleming, then advanced with Fleming to Saturday’s runoff because nobody won a majority that day.

Letlow’s message to supporters on election night was loyalty without hesitation. “I am so filled with gratitude for the greatest president this country has every had, Donald J. Trump,” she told the crowd. “I am also so incredibly grateful for your endorsement.”

She pledged in the campaign to work in lockstep with Trump to advance his agenda, a promise that matters in a state Trump carried in 2024 by 22 percentage points. If Letlow wins in the general election, she would become Louisiana’s first female Republican senator.

The politics of replacement is the larger story behind Saturday’s win. The victory caps Trump’s early 2026 push to replace GOP lawmakers with candidates he sees as more loyal to him. Last month, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, and five Indiana state senators all lost reelection bids to challengers Trump endorsed. He also backed two GOP gubernatorial candidates in June primaries—Rep. Randy Feenstra in Iowa on June 2 and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones of Georgia on June 16—only to see them lose to outsiders.

Letlow’s path is also personal, and it surfaced repeatedly as the campaign grew sharper. She entered Congress in 2021 after her husband, Luke Letlow, died from COVID-19 complications following his election to Congress in 2020. She later won the special election to fill his seat. Saturday’s celebration included thanks to Gov. Jeff Landry. who began advocating for Letlow to Trump last year. and who Letlow credited as a key reason Trump took interest.

Trump endorsed Letlow in January, but the timing became another detail in the race: the president took until January to endorse her, making the announcement before she declared her candidacy.

The contrast between what voters said mattered—and what they didn’t know—showed up in raw, simple language. Barbara Dufrene. 67. of Marrero. said she knew little about Letlow but was betting on Trump to lower her healthcare costs and increase her social safety net. “I always vote whatever Trump wants,” Dufrene said.

For all the pageantry, the runoff turned on how the two candidates fought for the same Trump-aligned electorate—and what they accused each other of doing along the way.

Letlow’s campaign had advantages heading into the runoff. Campaign spending on her behalf and support from prominent Republicans put her in a strong position. She was endorsed by Gov. Jeff Landry and U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Fleming, despite his own conservative bona fides, spent much of the final stretch trying to dislodge Letlow’s Trump connection.

The May 16 primary made the starting line clear: Letlow finished first with nearly 45% of the vote, compared with about 28% for Fleming and nearly 25% for Cassidy. Letlow and Fleming moved on because there was no majority.

In the House Freedom Caucus era, Fleming had his own identity to defend. He is a founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. and he later worked in Trump’s first administration after the former president took office. During the campaign, Fleming reminded voters that he did not resign after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Fleming also claimed he was blocked from reaching Trump to seek an endorsement by White House allies of Landry. Fleming said he finally got on the phone with Trump, and told the president who he was. “I said nobody has been more loyal to you than me,” Fleming recounted during a June campaign stop. “He said, ‘You’re fantastic!. Why didn’t you call?’”.

The campaigns spent comparably on advertising after the May 16 primary—roughly $1 million each—yet the money picture looked different when outside groups entered. A super PAC that supports Letlow led all spending. accounting for $4.1 million in the past six weeks. according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact.

As the runoff tightened, the fight turned personal in a way that reflected the modern campaign cycle—part policy disagreement, part information warfare.

Fleming attacked Letlow on diversity, equity and inclusion, and she responded that she had changed her position. Fleming’s ads highlighted Letlow’s prior public support for DEI policy, while Trump has tried to eliminate it. Letlow said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020. but she said she opposes it this year.

Then came the AI-generated video. Fleming reposted an AI-generated video on the social platform X this month that purported to show Letlow saying she supported DEI because she “didn’t know any better.” The fake image also referenced her husband. Luke Letlow. who died from complications of COVID-19. Fleming said he did not create the video “but it’s getting passed around Louisiana for a reason.”.

Letlow condemned the sharing of the video as “disgraceful and indefensible,” chiefly because it mentioned her husband. She thanked her late husband Saturday and also introduced her fiance, Kevin Ainsworth, a Baton Rouge lobbyist. The pair were engaged at the White House in December.

Even with that bitterness hanging in the air. the two candidates spoke in sharply different tones once the result was final. Letlow thanked Fleming and said they had a pleasant phone conversation after the race was called in her favor. Fleming told his supporters. “The contest for this primary is over. and now it’s on to the general election.” He added that they wanted to “continue to make America strong by sending the best of the best there.”.

On policy, Letlow emphasized priorities for social conservatives. She pointed to her support for national legislation barring transgender women and girls from competing in school sports. Fleming. meanwhile. staked much of his campaign on opposition to carbon capture and sequestration—the process for injecting carbon dioxide waste underground to reduce industrial pollution.

In rural Louisiana, the proposed build-out has been a flashpoint, including planned pipelines. Fleming said the technology’s build-out has sparked backlash in rural communities and divided the state GOP. He argued that such projects infringe on private property rights and that federal government subsidies for the technology are wasteful.

Across parties, the nomination drama also played out elsewhere in Louisiana. In the Democratic primary, Jamie Davis, a northeast Louisiana crop farmer, defeated Gary Crockett, a Navy veteran and business executive. Both candidates campaigned on addressing the cost of living and protecting social safety nets.

By night’s end in Baton Rouge. the runoff had settled one question: the Republican choice to succeed Cassidy was now Letlow. The next question is what Trump’s win will look like on a larger stage—because Louisiana’s general election is where loyalty and strategy will be tested again. with Letlow now positioned as the immediate favorite to take Cassidy’s seat.

Julia Letlow John Fleming Louisiana Senate Trump-backed candidate Bill Cassidy Republican primary runoff DEI AI video carbon capture sequestration Jamie Davis Gary Crockett