Today's the day candidates for Louisiana's U.S. House races and one U.S. Senate seat can start signing up to run. This election cycle, the state returns to a closed primary system for these races.
Numerous challengers have come forward hoping to unseat incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy -- mostly from his own party. But there has not been much from the Democratic party. Political analyst Ron Faucheux said a recent win by a Democrat in a state house special election in a district that Donald Trump carried by 13 points in 2024 may have gotten some hopes up:
"And I'm sure that's putting some thoughts in the minds of some Democrats, 'maybe we can win one of these seats," said Faucheux, "but to my knowledge, I haven't seen anything specific about it."
Faucheux says we may see some of the announced candidates on the Republican side bow out after Trump endorsed Julia Letlow.
"President Trump's endorsement completely rearranged the U.S. Senate race and it also rearranged the House race for Julia Letlow's congressional seat," said Faucheux.
One of those announced candidates, State Senator Blake Miguez, has already said he's dropping out of the Senate race and will run for the House seat Letlow is giving up to run for Senate.