The Associated Press has called Louisiana's U.S. Senate race for Republican Julia Letlow, defeating Democrat Jamie Davis 745,963 votes to 720,106 — 50.88 percent to 49.12 percent — with 100 percent of precincts reporting, holding the seat for Republicans and succeeding Bill Cassidy. Letlow, who has represented Louisiana in the House since 2021 and was the first Republican woman elected to Congress from the state, now becomes Louisiana's first Republican woman in the U.S. Senate.
President Donald Trump backed Letlow before she even entered the race, urging her to challenge Cassidy, who had voted to convict him in his second impeachment trial. Cassidy was eliminated in the Republican primary, finishing third, and Letlow went on to beat State Treasurer John Fleming in the Republican runoff. Davis, a Tensas Parish farmer backed by New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno, had won the Democratic runoff with about 80 percent of the vote.
In Mississippi, the Senate race is a dead heat and still too early to call. Democrat Scott Colom leads Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 28 votes — 462,779 to 462,751, each on 48.9 percent — with 99.83 percent of precincts reporting and independent Ty Pinkins on 19,934 votes, 2.1 percent. Colom, the district attorney for Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties, would be the first Democrat to win a Mississippi Senate race since John Stennis in 1982 if the lead holds.
Because this is a regular election, Mississippi law requires only a plurality to win a U.S. Senate seat — the majority-vote runoff rule applies to state offices, not to Congress, as Secretary of State Michael Watson's office clarified before the election — so the race will be settled by the remaining count, not by a runoff. Mississippi has no automatic recount; a recount happens only by court order, and the AP declares a winner only when the trailing candidate cannot close the gap.
For voters in both states, the results shape the Senate President Trump must now work with: Louisiana keeps a Trump-backed Republican in the seat, while Mississippi's 28-vote race will help set the final size of the Democratic majority that takes over the chamber in January.
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