Although somewhat less wacky
than the eruptions rocking Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District contest,
northeast Louisianans also saw some changes wash over the state’s District 5 Public
Service Commission race as qualifying occurs this week for both.
For the House of Representatives, Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez’s shuffle out of the U.S. Senate field, essentially leaving a three-way battle among GOP incumbent Bill Cassidy, the current CD 5 Republican Rep. Julia Letlow, and GOP state Treas. John Fleming where any two of these three could make the nomination runoff and the winner therefore winning the office later this fall, shook up a passel of candidates who sprung out of the woodwork after Letlow with little warning entered the Senate race, propelled by an endorsement from Republican Pres. Donald Trump. Then immediately after Miguez said he had switched, Trump endorsed him.
With the millions of dollars already committed to his previous federal contest that he can transfer and the imprimatur of Trump, Miguez becomes the favorite to succeed Letlow, despite the fact that he doesn’t live near the district (no district residency requirement is imposed constitutionally, only state residency). The move doesn’t look accidental, and possibly it was triggered by Trump-aligned backers who didn’t want to see Miguez’s momentum they had helped build go to waste. With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to give the state a fourth district map in five elections, Miguez if elected would be able to have a new map and/or undertake a change in address putting him in the district to defend it in 2028.
Despite this, it likely won’t chase the Monroe-area candidates away from the courthouse this week. A new map very likely will restore a Monroe-anchored district, so even if these candidates lose in 2026, they will have warmed up themselves and a chunk of the new district’s electorate for 2028.
Boundary uncertainty isn’t a feature of the PSC race, stretching across the northern part of the state from Texas to Mississippi. It’s current occupant, Bossier Parish Democrat Foster Campbell, is term-limited and the last remaining white member of his party elected to an executive office in the state.
That demographic exception likely will not continue into 2027. Polling was done (ineptly so, it transpired) last year for Campbell’s son Nick to succeed him, but that effort seems to have petered out. He would have a hard row to hoe against the GOP nominee, which stretching back into last year had been a hotly-contested affair between Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John Atkins and GOP state Rep. Larry Bagley; both are term-limited in their current posts which finish at the end of 2027.
As of the end of last year, Atkins had pulled in over $1 million in donations and personal loan and had spent about $60,000, while Bagley at the end of 2024 had just over $160,000 on hand (having not made an official declaration of candidacy for the office for financial disclosure purposes, his next report due for last year for his current office is Feb. 28). Bagley’s less intensive electioneering may have been due to health problems.
And that was the reason Bagley gave last week for dropping out of the race. About simultaneously, Democrat Shreveport City Councilman James Green, also term-limited at the end of this year, announced that he would take the plunge.
Green, who is black, can be expected to win his party’s nomination, well known as he is in Shreveport, with almost a quarter of the district’s total population, having represented his majority-black district in a majority-black city for 24 of the past 32 years. Blacks comprise the large majority of registered Democrats in the district.
But he has little chance of winning the general election, whose demographics favor a Republican, especially one as well-financed as Atkins and as Green hasn’t run a (relatively small) campaign or raised money since 2014. Monroe businessman Ned White also has called himself a GOP candidate, but has reported no campaign donations or expenditures despite solicitations for funds on a website.
After qualifying, Atkins should stand out as the big favorite to give the GOP a 4-1 advantage on the PSC starting next year.
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