Likely the field of competitive candidates for the U.S. Senate, all Republicans, now is set with the entrance to the contest of GOP state Rep. Julie Emerson.
With Democrats flailing for finding an even remotely credible candidate, Emerson joins a field of potential winners Treas. John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta, and incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy. In fact, of the five Cassidy may have the longest shot of winning, as with the reborn party closed primary election for a nomination into the general election for 2026 in place Cassidy remains behind the eight ball for his questionable, to conservatives, policy votes early in his second term and hostility towards GOP Pres. Donald Trump by voting to impeach and convict him for no good reason.
But as Cassidy now claims to have over $10 million in his campaign kitty, any competitive candidate will have to raise at least a couple of million. Fleming (mostly his own) and Miguez (mostly from others) have done that, while Skrmetta, who entered the race in September, still hasn’t reported his campaign finances.
Emerson will have to hit that marks, too, and it’s not obvious that she can. She’s entering the race relatively late given the primary election is in early spring, so a lot of donors’ money has gone out the door already. But she does have the advantage of apparently being the choice of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who can steer his network of donors towards her. They worked together on big Landry priorities, like reinstituting closed primaries and tax reform that cut income tax rates, while Fleming and Miguez have criticized Landry on other issues from time to time. (A couple of other minor candidates also have entered the race on the GOP side.)
Emerson has the disadvantage of coming from the smallest, in population, jurisdiction from among the candidates, but has leveraged beyond that by authoring some major pieces of legislation. Then again, she was a driving force behind sensible fiscal reforms that needed amending into the Constitution but failed in part to overblown fears that religious conservatives had over the changes, who may hold that against her in the GOP primary. (A similar version will be on the ballot with her, and she may face attacks over her support for the income tax cuts because they were tied to a sales tax hike).
Her entrance really closes the meaningful field not only because it’s getting very late to get in with any realistic hope of winning but also because her jumping in basically pushes out another Landry favorite, Republican Rep. Julia Letlow. Over the past few months a vibe has developed that between the gal pals only one would run while the other would defer. If that was the case, Emerson getting in means Letlow sitting it out.
It also likely produces a natural barrier to entry in that that saturation point for Cassidy challengers has been reached. Like the others, but to the least degree, Emerson will suck away more support from Cassidy than any other major candidate, but that advantage has dwindled compared to each time one of the others dove in. Cassidy support likely has fallen to just his base of reliable supporters, with just about all potential defectors already having chosen one of the other competitive candidates. That means the competition henceforth will be as much about trying to attract the anti-Cassidy vote as it is to disparage support of Cassidy.
That makes Cassidy more likely than not a survivor into the runoff, but one of the four others will be there with him and grab almost all of the other voters in the primary for the runoff while Cassidy’s total won’t expand much, making the other candidate in the runoff the winner. This increases the temptation for any one to go after the others and give Cassidy an unmolested ride, waiting for the runoff to open fire on him. An especially vigorously negative application of this strategy replicated across all four campaigns gives Cassidy his only real chance to win by avoiding a reminding of Republican voters about Cassidy’s treatment of Trump and his policy missteps until later when resources might be tight.
Emerson has the capacity to make the ante as have Fleming and Miguez to date. If so, she also has the capacity to secure enough of the anti-Cassidy GOP vote to make it to the runoff. Conservatives have yet another good choice to send to the Senate.
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