Louisiana Democrats take aim at the governor’s mansion

In a now-famous line, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jamie Davis took to the stage last week at his Election Night watch party and gave a warning to Gov. Jeff Landry: “You’re on notice, buddy.”

But first, let’s address the biggest lingering question from the Louisiana Senate race: Why didn’t the national Democratic Party and its donors do more? 

In a Twitter/X post, Senator-elect Scott Colum of Mississippi said that it came down to election forecasters like Cook Political Report having Louisiana and Mississippi rated as “Solid R,” which made it almost impossible to raise funds. Colom belatedly received $15.5 million for his race from outside groups, while Davis only received $129,000.

So it’s hard to know what kind of war chest Democrats can amass against a Republican incumbent in the 2027 governor’s race — and what the field of candidates will look like. Though Davis’s Election Night words elicited thunderous applause, he still stands as a “maybe” for the governor’s contest. 

But for some, Davis’s warning to Landry was a call to action. Within days, people began throwing around names of  Louisiana Democrats who could run in next year’s gubernatorial race.

So far, the names include Davis and Dustin Granger, the state Democratic Party treasurer from Lake Charles; Jay Luneau, state senator from Alexandria; Gary Smith Jr., a former state senator from Norco; and Davante Lewis, a public service commissioner from Baton Rouge, according to Perdido Street, a Louisiana politics newsletter. 

In an Instagram post, Gary Crockett, a businessman and Navy veteran from Tallulah, also threw his hat into the ring, in a post complete with a campaign poster tagged with the slogan “64 Parishes. One Future” and an image of a campaign vehicle, a white Chevy Suburban emblazoned with an outline of Louisiana and two words: Crockett and Governor. 

Crockett lost to Davis by 60 points in the Democratic primaries.  

Outside of Davis, who hasn’t committed to running, political wisdom says that John Bel Edwards, the popular Democratic two-term former governor, would do best in a face-off with Landry. 

Though a Louisiana ballot amendment passed on Election Day prohibits anyone from running for governor after they have served more than one-and-a-half terms, it may not apply retroactively to Bel Edwards, some have said.

But Bel Edwards explicitly told NOLA.com that he was not running for governor. 

Most of the other potential contenders did not immediately respond to questions from The Lens. But Granger confirmed that he was considering a run after being approached about it for years. “We all saw that voters all over Louisiana are ready for something different,” he said. 

Reasons for concern for Landry
Landry told the Times-Picayune that he was “happy to put my record against any Democrat in this state.” 

But his popularity has been dropping.

According to a 2026 Pelican Institute poll, Landry’s approval rating stood at 58% in 2025 and fell to 43% by March 2026. An October 2025 poll by JMC Analytics and Polling showed his approval at 39%. There was an effort to recall him, though that officially failed on Nov. 2, the deadline, with organizers opting to turn in no signatures at all. 

There’s a swath of Landry’s decisions that could lead to his unpopularity: he backs data centers, canceled U.S. House races after 42,000 ballots were cast so that state lawmakers could gerrymander the state’s congressional districts, eliminating one of Louisiana’s two Black-majority voting districts, and more.

Landry isn’t making any friends in his own party, either, with his tendency to use a heavy-handed approach to getting what he wants. Nearly a dozen Louisiana Republicans — including party leaders — told Politico that they are growing “frustrated” by his methods. Louisiana lawmakers including Senate president Cameron Henry Jr. of Metairie have stood up to key parts of his agenda,  and he has clashed with multiple legislators, even those who had typically been his allies.

This gives the Louisiana Democrats some confidence. Also, though Trump won the state by a full 22 points in 2024, that changed during this election, when all 64 parishes in Louisiana shifted an average of 20 points to the left for the Senate race. 

“I think that we’re in the driver’s seat. I think everything shows that we’ve made tremendous gains,” said Dadrius Lanus, the executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party, noting that he’s never before seen a governor dive into fundraising immediately after an election. 

Gov. Landry hosted a fundraiser event Thursday at The Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans. Tickets were $1,000 to $12,000 per couple.

Renewed energy in Louisiana
Though Davis is a skilled campaigner, he, like other Democrats across the country, especially the South, benefitted from an ever-growing dissatisfaction for the president and Republicans, fueled by astronomical gas prices and other rising everyday costs. 

On Wednesday, the Senate race in Mississippi was finally called for Democrat Scott Colom, as he led by at least 4,000 votes.   The GOP was also trounced in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas from federal to the state level, and lost state legislative supermajorities in Arkansas, South Carolina, Missouri, and Florida. Florida Governor Ron Desantis called the night an “extinction-level event.” 

But will the anti-MAGA sentiment carry over into the Louisiana gubernatorial race? 

“[Trump’s] name will still be ringing throughout Louisiana,” said Lanus, of the state Democrat Party. For years, the governor has supported the president at every single turn, and now he has to answer for it.”

Landry is sure to have national support as he revs up his campaign engine. And his campaign bank account is already fat: it exceeded $11 million by March 2026. Then in September 2026, he raised $7 million, as he began the ramp-up to next year’s election.

After last week’s Blue Wave, Melissa Flournoy, a former Democratic state lawmaker, believes that national donors and the national Democratic Party are now seeing potential in the South, even if they still don’t see the region as fully “viable.”  She is “cautiously optimistic” that Democrats will build momentum across the state, she said.

Lanus is even more energized coming out of Election Day. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hopes to get involved with the two lingering Louisiana congressional races, in Districts 5 and 6, that will head to runoffs in December.

That bodes well for elections to come, Lanus predicts. Louisiana will, he said, “(n)ever be skipped over again.”