Simple story of new LA GOP senator most credible

It doesn’t work well to hyperventilate about the intriguing 2026 Louisiana Senate race when Occam’s Razor will do.

Concerning the upcoming contest, a piece at Townhall.com by a Paul Hidalgo, whose brief biographical line lists as his only source of expertise on the subject matter is he’s a resident of Marrero. Twists itself into knots. Townhall as an open-door policy to contributors, and while some are good (Louisianan Jeff Crouere, longtime conservative activist and radio show host whose day job flummoxed the state’s largest newspaper the Baton Rouge Advocate, reprints his weekly column there), this one leaves the reader more confused than prior to laying eyes on it.

At its core, Hidalgo seems to think there’s a realistic chance that Louisiana could give away a GOP seat in the Senate. This is because, he writes, incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy is polling so miserably for an incumbent he would end up losing against a Democrat, with Hidalgo specifically mentioning Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards as the foil.

Indeed, Hidalgo alleges that only 22 percent of Republican primary voters would cast their ballot for Cassidy. He doesn’t give a citation for that and apparently the only bit of information that even seems close to that is a Morning Consult poll from early this year that said in the Republican primary Cassidy would pick up 27 percent of the vote and that of only 22 percent of conservatives.

But Hidalgo then contradicts himself by noting how badly Cassidy polls among Republican voters particularly, implying that he can’t make it out of the GOP runoff. More whiplash becomes induced when he writes how GOP voters need to rally around a conservative candidate unless the Republican electorate rallies otherwise, again implying that Cassidy will make it out and head to defeat.

So, which is it? If GOP support for him is so low, which allegedly would cost him the general election, then he’s not going to get there anyway and the danger of losing the seat is averted. Except, Hidalgo seems to be arguing, whichever conservative challenger that he says GOP voters must unite around in order to win is at great risk of losing because of the ferocity of taking down Cassidy then facing Edwards, who in the alleged mystery poll received 13 percent of Republicans’ vote, and, to quote the hyperventilation, “Edwards has beaten Republicans statewide before. Twice. He has branded himself as a pragmatic Democrat who speaks the language of faith, family, and fiscal restraint while keeping his base energized. Against a divided GOP, he could once again present himself as the safer choice ….”

Maybe you can interpret this as a cry for Cassidy to fold up his tent and go home, because he’s so toxic and causing divisiveness without a chance to win. However, the divisiveness would remain regardless of Cassidy’s participation; after all, it’s a once–in-a-decade-or-two chance to get to the Senate, so it’s going to be a donnybrook regardless.

And the analysis of Edwards is, to be charitable, highly suspect and five years out of date. Edwards’ narrow 2019 reelection, unmoored from national trends (which in any event were edging the way of Democrats back then), showed the bloom was fading from the rose and by 2023 was completely off as Edwards used his last term to demonstrate himself as anything but a social conservative or practitioner of fiscal restraint. Any quality conservative would defeat him convincingly absent some absolute, unanticipated weirdness.

In fact, if we are to believe anything, the latest known stab at calling this election at this point comes in the form of a poll supposedly for the Advocate in early July, but as yet unreleased. It includes Cassidy and GOP challengers Treas. John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez, and it replicates basically what a March poll noted: that Cassidy loses the nomination to anyone, with Fleming in the best position. In other words, Cassidy won’t get the chance to give away the seat.

 That said, this poll has some question marks. Oddly, it included Republican Rep. Clay Higgins, who bowed out months ago. Not so oddly, it included GOP Rep. Julia Letlow, who continues to dither whether to dive in. Fleming had better chances than her, according to it, but most intriguingly it appeared with Letlow in the race, who is the candidate seen most similar to Cassidy, that there would be a very realistic chance that Fleming and Letlow would ace out Cassidy from a runoff. (It also didn’t include the recent major candidate entry of the GOP’s Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta.)

But tempering any enthusiasm about what this poll can tell us is its source: Vantage Data House. This is the outfit that around a year ago made a splash by teasing about a new method of online polling with a phenomenal record that predicted a Democrat presidential landslide and convincing Senate takeover. We know how that turned out, the greatest political polling miss since the Literary Digest fiasco, so it’s hard to be confident about anything it does.

Suffice to say, this is where things stand: despite deep pockets, Cassidy is in serious trouble because of conservative distrust of him. He’s very likely to lose the nomination, and it’s overwhelmingly likely that whichever challenger bests him will be Louisiana’s next senator, with Fleming having the edge at this moment – but something that easily could change in the next seven months. All adding up to the Republicans incredibly likely not throwing away the seat. The simplest explanation usually is the correct one.