Louisiana
Southern US state whose Callais case rewrote VRA law; ousted Cassidy for Letlow in June.
Louisiana was the named plaintiff in Louisiana v. Callais, decided 29 April 2026, which gutted the Supreme Court's Section 2 voting-rights mandate. Its redrawn congressional map, reported 4 June, erased one of the state's two majority-Black districts and drew out the Democratic incumbent it had been created for.
Last refreshed: 28 July 2026 · Appears in 2 active topics
Did unseating Bill Cassidy signal a broader anti-incumbent wave in Republican primaries?
Timeline for Louisiana
Mentioned in: Tennessee map survives its first test
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: DOJ appeals its Michigan voter-file loss
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: Foxborough and Kraft go to court
2026 FIFA World CupHosted the Republican Senate runoff
US Midterms 2026: Letlow routs Fleming by 13.6 pointsMentioned in: Cassidy out; Letlow meets Fleming on 27 June
US Midterms 2026Background
Louisiana is a Gulf Coast state in the American South with roughly a third of its population Black, one of the highest shares in The Nation. It holds six congressional seats, is majority Republican statewide with a Democratic enclave in New Orleans and the Baton Rouge corridor, and has a history of redistricting litigation longer than almost any other state, with successive legislatures found to have drawn maps that diluted Black voting power.
The state's ongoing Senate and House battles sit inside that longer legal history rather than outside it: whichever congressional map holds for 2026, Louisiana remains the jurisdiction whose litigation named the Supreme Court's current Section 2 doctrine.
New map ousted a Black incumbent
Louisiana was the named plaintiff in Louisiana v. Callais, decided 29 April 2026, and had to redraw its own congressional map first under the Court's 5 May judgment-forthwith order . The new map, reported 4 June 2026, erases one of the state's two majority-Black districts and draws out Democratic Representative Cleo Fields, who had won the seat in 2024 only because the Court had ordered Louisiana to create it .
The redraw completes a doctrinal loop: the same Court that compelled the district's creation in 2024 supplied the ruling that licensed its elimination two years later.
Louisiana ousted Cassidy for Letlow
Incumbent Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in 2021, finished third in Louisiana's 17 May Senate primary on 24.8%, sending Trump-endorsed Julia Letlow and treasurer John Fleming into a 27 June runoff . Outside spending was lopsided throughout: Letlow drew over $1 million in independent expenditures while Fleming received none, even as a mid-June poll showed her lead collapsing to a statistical tie .
Letlow won the runoff comfortably in the end, 56.8% to 43.2%, a FAR wider margin than the polling had suggested just two weeks earlier .