All in all, the entry of Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez into the GOP Senate nomination for the 2026 contest actually doesn’t change much the dynamics so far working against incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy.
Miguez joins heavyweight candidate GOP Treas. John Fleming and lightweight hospital administrator Sammy Wyatt. He has conservative credentials that match Fleming’s, if not his experience in Congress and in the White House, and becomes easily the youngest candidate in the race.
Cassidy’s problem is that, for reasons when analyzed rather unconvincing other than personal dislike for Trump, he voted to convict Republican Pres. Donald Trump of spurious impeachment charges, as well as cozied up to fiscal elements of Democrats’ agenda in the first half of the Democrat former Pres. Joe Biden’s term. It’s not been forgotten and while Cassidy’s campaign has a formidable bankroll to try to induce that memory lapse among GOP voters Fleming’s has more than enough to remind them of that.
Now, here comes Miguez to pile on, as he did with his introductory social media post, which obviously won’t help Cassidy. The difficult electoral math for Cassidy is that he polls poorly against rivals like Miguez and the more that quality conservatives jump in, the more votes he loses. In the case of Miguez, a portion of putative Cassidy voters may have been in his column solely because of some issue with Fleming, such as that Fleming if elected would be in his mid-seventies in age (although he is in excellent health and certainly not in a rocking chair as he runs the Treasury Department, nor is Cassidy that much younger). Now with a real perceived alternative to Fleming, those voters will slough off Cassidy, and the same dynamic could apply to a portion of Fleming voters who are in his camp only because he’s quality and he’s not Cassidy.
Miguez’s big issue will be money that buys name recognition, which is why in polling he is the mentioned candidate with the slimmest lead, and the only with a just a plurality of the intended vote, over Cassidy. The successful challenger will have to fight a two-front war: go after Cassidy to ensure a place in the runoff, yet also throw occasional lobs against all others to make sure Cassidy and someone else doesn’t ace him out of the runoff. Fleming has the resources to do that; as of yet, Miguez doesn’t.
That paucity of name recognition is why polling has Miguez as the least electorally capable opponent to replace. Likely after spending on building that, Miguez would siphon more votes from Cassidy and to a lesser extent from Fleming. In fact, possibly although less likely than a nomination runoff with Cassidy making it in, Fleming and Miguez, if the latter can ramp up the campaign spending, could knock out Cassidy in the primary election.
But the rule of thumb here is first you have to build that name recognition, then you can contrast yourself with others. For Miguez, some time-sharing can occur in the build phase by using Cassidy as a foil but there will come a point where he may have to go after the alternatives like Fleming, and getting to that point will require a lot of fundraising.
However, in the final analysis while the announcement downgrades what was an excellent chance for Fleming to win as it was, it makes Cassidy’s reduced chances now even slimmer. With no real chance for a Democrat to win (lightning won’t strike twice), the entrance of Miguez also ratchets up the intensity of a contest already off to an intense start.
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