In 1873, P.B.S. Pinchback, a Black man, was elected by a Republican Louisiana state legislature to serve in a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate, but the U.S. Senate refused to seat him, because a Democratic legislature in Louisiana had elected a different candidate.
Other Black senators have been elected into the U.S. Senate before and after Pinchback. But no one from Louisiana. Since then, no Black person from Louisiana has been elected into the nation’s Senate chamber.
In June, a Black farmer, Jamie Davis from Tensas Parish — population 4,400 — won the Democratic primary in a landslide, becoming the first Black Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. He faces the race’s presumed front-runner, Republican Congresswoman Julia Letlow in the general election. Local media have used terms like “long shot” to describe his chances of beating her.
But now the long shot seems to be moving into striking distance.
Some people have even begun to wonder if a glimmer of blue could break into Louisiana’s long red Senatorial history. Is this the year, they ask, when Louisiana elects its first Black U.S. Senator in more than a century?
Louisiana pollster John Couvillon still believes that Letlow will win, he told The Lens. But “this is not going to be a slam dunk race for [her],” he warned.
On a cool evening last month, several dozen people — many wearing “Davis for U.S. Senate” shirts — filled every table in Cafe Tomas in Kenner, where they watched a bilingual presentation for people who have volunteered to campaign for Davis door to door. Diane Schnell, a one-time Republican and a former Kenner mayoral candidate, gave the Spanish-language guide to canvassing. Schnell knows other Hispanic Republicans that will be voting for Davis because of anti-Trump sentiment, she said. “[Some feel] we’re actually worse than we’ve ever [been] through any president.”
The night’s English-language explanation came from activist Marshawn Camese, whose legislative testimony about Congressional redistricting went viral in May. As he walked crowd members through key steps — like remaining respectful to those they meet, being persuasive without being pushy — Camese summarized campaign canvassing as spreading “the good news.”
The Biblical reference was apt. Outside of the restaurant, Kenner residents Greg “Papa G” Piper and his wife Lauren Piper described how they wear their “Jamie Davis for U.S. Senate” shirts several times a week to Walmart in Kenner, where registered voters are split nearly 50-50 Republican and Democrats. While there, they hand out political push cards and proselytize about Davis and his campaign.
Republicans and independents shifting blue at higher rates
It’s not unusual on social media these days to see pro-Davis comments from people claiming to be Republicans. The support is not merely anecdotal. In the third quarter, Davis out-fundraised Letlow 3-to-1, with more than 90% of donations coming from individual donors. This all comes in addition to two polls (both commissioned by the Davis campaign and conducted by two different firms) that came to the same result: Davis trailing Letlow by only 4 points.
Of note, the latest poll showed that Letlow had double the name recognition, at a clip of 82% to 41%. People know who Letlow is, the polls say, but that doesn’t mean they are supporting her. Letlow may be weighed down by her party. Even in this blood red state, the Republican brand has taken a nose-dive, because of ICE killing people in the streets, the Iran War dragging on, and gas prices skyrocketing. According to the latest Louisiana Senate race poll, Letlow was only viewed positively by 28% of independents.
Robbi Gilly, of Covington, a conservative Christian and a longtime Republican who recently became an independent, was partly motivated by a low opinion of the Congresswoman, she told The Lens. Instead of voting for Letlow, “an incompetent legislator,” she planned to vote for Davis, “a hard-working Louisianan,” she said.
“Independents are always the deciding factor in a political race,” said Couvillon, the pollster. “If you’re losing or underperforming with independents, that is a problem.”
Davis has been endorsed by popular Louisiana Democrats like John Bel Edwards, the moderate former governor, and by prominent national Democrats nationwide like New Jersey U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who hosted a Davis fundraiser. This all comes in a political environment where some Republicans are just hoping that the projected blowout — the so-called “Blue Wave” — is not as bad as the polls show it could be.
Earlier this week, Politico wrote: “Democrats are pushing to flip Senate seats in Iowa, Texas, Ohio and Alaska — all states that President Donald Trump won by at least 11 points in 2024 — with dreams of going even deeper into the map Kansas, South Carolina and even Mississippi.”
It seems nearly impossible to push that list of flipped seats to Louisiana, which Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. But the race has become close, Couvillon acknowledged. Part of that is due to Republicans who are crossing over, defecting from their party, to vote for Democrats. A typical rate of defection in elections is 5%. But in this election, across the nation, the rates are more than double, “I am seeing defections from Republicans towards Democratic candidates in about the 12% range,” he said.
A favorable political environment for a “longshot” candidate
Davis is a third-generation farmer from Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where he grows cotton and corn and soybeans on 3,200 sprawling acres.
He keeps conversations about himself simple: “I’m a Louisiana guy,” he’ll say, or he will describe himself as a “Louisiana sportsman.” He was a public school kid, graduating from the now-closed Waterproof High School, where he played football with the school’s Fighting Tigers. He has served as the vice president of the Tensas Parish Police Jury, which acts like a parish council. He’s also been a member of Louisiana’s Democratic State Central Committee.
Davis looks askew at partisan politics. He doesn’t hold tight to any of the so-called “Culture War” stances that divide much of the country. Instead, he sticks to the “four pillars” of his platform: affordability, education, health care, and upholding the Constitution.
His focus on those core issues impressed Jaiden Valure, a 23-year-old Republican from Acadia Parish, who sees Davis’s campaign as evidence that politics doesn’t need to be “so divided.”
Valure voted for Trump in 2024 but will be casting his ballot for Jamie Davis this election. “I just think [Davis’] campaign is really genuine and speaks to the common person in Louisiana,” Valure said. He also supports Davis’ desire to raise minimum wage and teacher pay.
Davis believes his message is landing because it is built on nonpartisan issues — “all people suffer,” he said.
Prior to his decision to run, Davis held big-picture anger towards the Trump administration and what he viewed as its negative impacts on American citizens: through a sputtering economy for the working class, through tariffs, sky-high gas prices, and cuts implemented through last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
But he also experienced adverse effects from the administration’s policies. In 2025, Davis had “the very best crop on average” but did not net a single dollar. His harvests and income were not enough. “We can’t be a country that wants to feed and clothe America, but yet the American farmer is being killed,” he said.
On top of that, his health care premiums doubled. This lit a fire in him to run for office. “We needed some changes in Louisiana, and I just felt like I could be one of those tools to make that change,” he said.
Meanwhile, Letlow has been tying herself to Trump and Gov. Jeff Landry, who are both polling terribly at the moment. Trump called her a “true America First patriot” and a “big MAGA fan.” Landry described her similarly, as a “MAGA warrior.”
Letlow’s primary win also came after a race that Couvillon described as“contentious”; afterward, he said, it also seemed to have lacked typical post-primary reconciliations and endorsements within her party, from opponents John Fleming, the state treasurer, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, the incumbent. “What has hurt Louisiana Republicans in the past has been lingering hard feelings,” he said, recalling similar dynamics during the 2015 and 2019 governors’ races.
An analysis by Dr. Robert Collins, professor of urban studies and public policy at Dillard University, boiled down what Davis needed to win: defections from Republicans, votes from independents, and high turnout by Black voters.
“The South definitely has something to say.”
REIGNITE Louisiana, founded by Louisiana activist Laketa M. Smith, was born out of this effort. Smith comes from a long line of Civil Rights activists and grew up organizing, she said. She formed REIGNITE Louisiana to “gather think tanks, the radicals, tired individuals, political leaders, constituents, and all who believe we deserve better in our state.”
Activists have made renewed efforts to raise Black voter turnout since Louisiana v. Callais, the April 2026 U.S. Supreme Court decision that scuttled the state’s second Black congressional district.
To help combat voter apathy after the Callais decision, Smith went on a multi-city speaking tour, called “All Roads Lead To The South.” In both Montgomery, Alabama and Jackson, Mississippi to a total of more than 12,000 people.
“People are in fact realizing that our rights, freedom and peace are being dismantled intentionally,” Smith told The Lens. “The South definitely has something to say.”
By July, VoteHub published a study entitled The Post-Callais Effect: Inside the Black Belt Turnout Surge, which found that Black turnout in key Southern primaries had “risen sharply” compared with pre-Callais elections. In Louisiana’s 2026 Democratic primary elections, 34% of the votes cast were by Black voters, despite only making up 31.8% of registered voters.
That surge should work in Davis’ favor in Louisiana, which has the second-highest proportion of Black residents in the country, after Mississippi. Davis also has a considerable grassroots network that can help boost turnout, according to Tyler Bridges in NOLA.com. Also, Bridges note, Davis is supported by groups like the NAACP and the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, along with endorsements from high-profile politicos such as Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis and Baton Rouge activist Gary Chambers Jr.
The surge seemed evident on the first day of early voting, when Black voters made up 32% of all voters; a larger voting share than nearly all other elections in the past 18 years.
Winning over Republicans
Louisiana has a long history of racial polarization in politics.
Three decades ago, in 1991, the Republican gubernatorial candidate was David Duke, an avowed former neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan leader, who won nearly 60% of the white vote, including 19 parishes: Beauregard, Caldwell, Catahoula, Concordia, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Livingston, Morehouse, Ouachita, Richland, Sabine, St. Bernard, Union, Vernon, Washington, West Carroll, and Winn.
Yet Davis believed that economic concerns might be more important than racial bias in today’s political climate. “It’s hard for people to take that stance when they’re hurting and they know that their party is the one that is contributing to that hurt,” he said. In the end, people will vote to survive instead of staying loyal and hungry, he believes. “I’ll give you an old adage [that] my dad used to say: you cannot allow a hungry dog to guard the meat house.”
Davis lives in a region carried by Trump in 2024. Three of the 19 “Duke parishes,” Franklin, Concordia, and Catahoula, border Tensas. He believes that could help him appeal to conservative voters. “A lot of the [agricultural] parishes, they fall right into my wheelhouse, because that’s where I live,” he said.
If you ask Davis, he will likely say he is just a farmer. “All of the things that I love to do are all of the things that conservative Republicans love to do. A lot of them [just] want the best for their families and for their businesses,” he told The Lens. “And you know, I’m no different than that. I just so happen to be a Democrat instead of a Republican.”
One of the voters he has won over is Malcolm Morgan, 59, a Republican from Crowley, who told The Lens that, for the first time in his life, he would be voting for a Democrat: Davis. “After I heard Jamie Davis’s story of where he came from and who he is, he [had] my support,” Morgan said.
It’s a discernable pattern, said Jack Reno Sweeney, the New Orleans field lead for the campaign, who has trained a number of Republican voters to knock on doors for Davis. “It’s crazy,” he said. “I’ve never worked with Republicans this much. Ever.”
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