(The Center Square) — All six Louisiana U.S. Representative seats were up for election on Tuesday and five races went to the incumbent.
The 2024 election in the Pelican State had little drama, especially for the presidential decision and historically Republican districts for the Congressional House.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La, won his eighth election in a row with a 67% majority vote in the 1st Congressional District. Democrat Mel Manuel put up a decent fight compared to some other Republican majority districts with 24% of the vote, but running on LGBTQ values didn’t seem to resonate within the district.
Scalise has been the GOP majority leader for 10 years, and with Republican’s currently winning the race for house majority nationwide, he could be the in that position once again in 2024.
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-La. held onto his 2nd Congressional District seat with a 60% vote. The victory for Democrats came as no surprise as the district is the stronghold for the party, stretching from north of Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
The three closest challengers were in a dogfight of their own, with 11%, 13%, and 14% of the vote respectfully, but it wouldn’t have mattered for the field if they all agreed on one with Carter having such a strong base.
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., ran away with the 3rd Congressional District with 71% of the vote.
None of his opponents had any campaign contributions, so they were behind the eight ball from the start. Higgins is widely regarded as one of the most conservative members of Congress and is a core member of the House Freedom Caucus.
The 4th Congressional District was the biggest landslide victory of them all with 86% of the vote going to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
While one candidate held the most important role in the House of Representatives, the only opponent was running on the same Republican platform and was behind by over $17 million in campaign contributions. Joshua Morott didn’t seem to stand much of a chance.
The race for the 5th Congressional District looked a lot like the 1st District race for U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La. She won 63% of the vote in the Republican majority district and was the only candidate with campaign contributions.
The 5th Congressional District incumbent worked with U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La, back in May to introduce legislation which condemns the border crisis created by the Biden administration and his policies.
Letlow is also 100% pro-life, pro-second amendment, opposes raising the minimum wage and supports oil, gas and agriculture industries.
Democrat candidate Michael Vallien Jr. put up the best fight of any opponent in an incumbent race, with 26% of the vote. M.V. Mendoza ran on a platform of condemning the congresswoman, but that didn’t seem to resonate as he only recieved 11% of the vote.
The 6th Congressional District race had the most drama by far, which comes as no surprise considering it had no incumbent in the race and it was a newly-drawn majority black district.
It was predicted by many that the new district would flip Democrat, but winner Cleo Fields wasn’t guaranteed every blue vote.
Quentin Anderson received the second most votes of the other three Democrat candidates with 8%. That, combined with the total 3% that went to the other two challengers, was almost enough to force a general election.
Fields won with 51%, but had he dropped under 50% he would’ve faced Republican Elbert Guillory in a runoff.
Guillory, despite being a black male candidate, didn’t get the memo that the new district had to be Democrat and ran on the idea of keeping Republican majority in the U.S. House.
His priorities included public safety, border security, inflation and education.
Guillory received 38% of the vote, but it wasn’t enough to overtake the former Louisiana Senator.
Fields was the most experienced candidate, serving three different stints in the Louisiana Senate (1988-1993, 1997-2008 and 2019 to the present) and the U.S. House for two terms from 1993 to 1997.
Unofficial voter turnout did not exceed 67% in any district, with the highest coming in the 1st District, according to the Louisiana voter portal.
