GOP grows anxious over Jamie Davis in Louisiana Senate race

In recent years, Republican electoral dominance in the South seems like it’s a near-certainty. In turn, U.S. Senate candidate Julia Letlow, the Republican anointed by the president and the governor, has acted as if she was guaranteed a win.

Then early voting numbers came in. 

Black folks accounted for 34.4% of early voters, with Democrats turning out 42% of early voters, over 39% Republicans. But Louisiana pollster John Couvillon cautioned that 10% to 20% of Republican early voters defected to Davis, he told NOLA.com. 

Letlow’s “cake-walk” turned into a “knife-fight,” one Louisiana Republican told Politico. The race is likely to come down to single digits, Louisiana Republicans have said.

And, in the biggest indicators that the race is getting tight, the Letlow camp has started to respond to Davis and national Republican donors are sending money Letlow’s way, in an effort to save the Senate seat that seemed secure as recently as August, when a poll showed Davis with 37% of the vote. 

During the last week of October, a $400,000 attack ad began airing across the state, paid for by “Accountability Project,” a Republican PAC tied to Gov. Jeff Landry that is supporting Letlow.

To Couvillon, the ad was an obvious reaction to tightened polling numbers, “I think the Letlow campaign was caught flatfooted, and is now engaged in defensive behavior… why else would they do that ad against Jamie Davis at the very last minute after 500K (people) had voted?”

In the controversial ad, Davis is depicted by an AI rendering, lumbering slowly towards the screen, while block letters come into view, touting wildly exaggerated claims about what policies he supports:

“ABORTION ON DEMAND.” 

“GUN RIGHTS TAKEN AWAY.” 

“SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE.” 

“ILLEGALS TO BECOME CITIZENS.”

“ICE ELIMINATED.”

“WEAKER SENTENCES FOR CRIMINALS.” 

A disembodied voice narrates the ad, concluding that “HIS VALUES ARE NOT LOUISIANA VALUES.” 

The attack’s motivation seems obvious to LSU New Orleans political scientist Edward Chervenak, who summarized the ad in an emailed response: “Republicans seek to counter signs of Democratic mobilization.”

Outside money floods into Letlow’s race

To shore up Letlow, a last-minute flood of outside spending arrived at the end of October. Nearly three-quarters of the $1.75 million spent in October by outside groups in support of Letlow came between October 26th and 31st, with the vast majority of it spent by the Accountability Project on media advertising, according to Capitol Hill Access. 

Notably, the Senate Leadership Fund, a powerful Super PAC, threw money into the race, spending $8,427 on “text messaging.” SLF is tied to Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate and has so far spent $489 million on 2026 midterm elections across the country, with the hopes of maintaining the Republican majority in that chamber. 

There’s also a Trump card, literally, that showed that the GOP is starting to take Davis seriously. The president himself will be hosting a “tele-rally” for Letlow on Monday November 2nd, the night before Election Day.

Because of the president’s low popularity numbers, many Republican candidates around the country and even in Louisiana have avoided mentioning ties to Trump as the general elections near. It’s a chance to “rally the base,” Letlow said to Newsmax. “Louisiana is a conservative state, and it should stay that way.”

Clearly, Republicans felt like they needed a last-minute boost, analysts said. “The Letlow campaign probably thought they were on cruise control, and then just recently have seen some numbers that have made them a little bit nervous,” Chervenak told WGNO. And despite all of this — the surge in donors, the attack ad or the Trump rally — the race isn’t necessarily tightening, Chervenak said. Instead, Republicans may be acting out of an abundance of caution, “to preserve Letlow’s lead and ensure that her advantage holds through Election Day.”

Outside of Louisiana, Republicans working on the midterms around the country are bracing for a rough night, as they face tight races in deep red territory across the nation, largely due to voter disapproval of the GOP and high Black Democratic turnout, a backlash from the Louisiana v. Callais court decision, which prompted a flurry of last-minute redistricting, much of it intended to favor Republican candidates. 

It’s hard to say whether the red-to-blue trend will extend to Louisiana and make the Senate race as competitive as some believe it will be. 

The weekend before Election Day two new polls — one commissioned by Davis and the other by the Louisiana Democratic Party — show that the race is tied. One showed the race tied at 47-47%, the other at 45-45%. The remainder, either 6% or 10%, are the undecided voters that will decide the outcome. 

Letlow’s campaign has questioned the numbers. “Bogus polls,” she said.

But on Thursday, October 29th, Inside Elections and Crystal Ball both changed their election forecast for the Louisiana U.S. Senate race from Safe or Solid Republican to Likely Republican. On Thursday alone, Inside Elections shifted calls in favor of Democrats for Senate races in nine states: Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi.