“If you want Cassidy 2.0, vote for Julia Letlow,” says John Fleming, alongside accusing Jeff Landry of pumping “dark money” into Senate race

Louisiana’s Senate primary runoff election takes place on June 27th. And recent polls indicate it may be a more hotly contested runoff race than expected between the two Republicans, Louisiana State Treasurer Dr. John Fleming and representative of Louisiana's 5th congressional district, Julia Letlow, who remains the frontrunner.

According to recent numbers from Fleming’s pollster, John Couvillon, the two candidates are neck-and-neck, Letlow at 45% and Fleming at 44%.

Fleming appeared on WWL to make his appeal to listeners, during which he took jabs at his opponent and the person he claims to be pulling the strings behind her campaign, Governor Jeff Landry.

At the heart of Fleming’s message to voters, he made sure to make one thing clear: Julia Letlow isn’t the MAGA-darling that she makes herself out to be.

“Her voting record over five years in Congress has been somewhat liberal compared to mine, probably in the same category as Bill Cassidy. She's been a supporter of DEI, diversity and, equity and inclusion," says Fleming. "She also supported the Biden bill back in 2023 for USAID that supplied funding for overseas abortions, as well as sex re-identification surgeries for children.”

Fleming contrasts Letlow's history with his congressional record and experience working under the first Trump administration.

“I served eight years in Congress and was a founder of the House Freedom Caucus. I served four years in the Trump administration and was Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House. I've been the state treasurer for two and a half years, and my voting record is much more conservative, consistently by all of the organizations that rate our voting.”

“And I've had no ethics problems, no legal problems, as opposed to Julia Letlow, who unfortunately did insider trading while in Congress. She's under investigation for that. And her campaign finance is now being investigated by the Department of Justice. So as you can see, we're vastly different candidates,” Fleming continues.

Fleming claims Letlow to be “Sold to the President by Jeff Landry.”

Fleming directly credits Letlow's success in gaining Trump's endorsement to her ties to the Louisiana Governor, claiming she was “Sold to the President by Jeff Landry.”

“You see, Jeff Landry, our governor, pretty much took control of her pre-campaign," states Fleming. "People that he knows up in Washington blocked my access to the president; they literally would not let me speak with him."

Then, once campaigning commenced, Fleming explains that Landry buoyed Letlow by pumping carbon capture “dark money” into her election efforts.

“So there's a lot of backroom politics, a lot of dark money that's been thrown in this race, again, all coming through Jeff Landry," Fleming tells WWL's Dave Cohen. "So that's been really the big factor here that a lot of people really don't know about. It's the backroom stuff. It's so common in Louisiana, and with Jeff Landry, it's probably back to the days of Huey Long. It's just gotten that bad."

Fleming reveals during the interview that he spoke with President Trump after being blocked out by Landry's people, and that during the conversation, the President called him "fantastic."

“I would say if you look at my voting record, you would see that I'm far more prototypical of a person endorsed by President Trump than Julia Letlow," says Fleming. "But again, when you have a governor, a powerful elected official in the state who has access to a lot of money, specifically from the carbon capture industry, then that can really change those dynamics drastically.”

“So if you want a Cassidy 2.0, then vote for Julia Letlow," Fleming said in closing.

"And you might say, well, then why did Trump endorse her? Remember that she was kind of sold to the president by Jeff Landry, who has some ultimate political plans through her. And Trump didn't know. She had not been fully vetted for him. And Trump endorses a lot of people. I mean, we're talking hundreds. He doesn't look into their personal records. He depends on people around him to do that."

WWL has reached out to Julia Letlow with an offer to appear, but her campaign has not made her available.