Three weeks out from Nov. 3, Louisiana's U.S. Senate race has settled into a familiar shape. Republican Julia Letlow is running like the favorite. Democrat Jamie Davis is running like a man who believes the polls are closer than everyone thinks, and who needs voters to believe it too.
Start with those polls, because the whole Davis campaign rests on them. Only two public surveys have been released in this race, and the Davis campaign paid for both. A Public Policy Polling survey taken July 21 and 22 had Letlow ahead 41% to 37%. A Hart Research poll taken Sept. 17 through 19 had her ahead 48% to 44%. Averaged together by the forecasting site Poliwave, that puts Letlow at 47.1% and Davis at 43.1%, the Shreveport Times reported.
Davis has a second number he likes better. "When the pollsters read my biography and Julia's biography, I went from a -4 to a +9," he told the Louisiana Radio Network. Davis says that swing came after respondents were told the candidates' backgrounds, and that many of them had not known who he was. It shows how voters react to a campaign's framing. Whether it shows how they will vote on a Tuesday in November is another matter.
Letlow's view of the polling fits in four words. Asked about the latest survey on Talk 107.3 in Baton Rouge, her entire answer was, "It's a bogus poll."
Poliwave, which blends polls with historical results, projects something very different from the Davis numbers: Letlow by 14.6 points, 57.3% to 42.7%. Two polls paid for by the challenger are thin evidence that a race most analysts expected Letlow to win decisively has turned into a coin flip.
The fight over debates follows the same logic. WDSU-TV in New Orleans invited both candidates in August to a "Hot Seat" debate. Davis accepted. As of Verite News's Oct. 1 report, Letlow had not, according to the Davis campaign, and her campaign did not respond when Verite asked. Indivisible Louisiana, a progressive coalition, launched a petition on Sept. 22 urging her to take the stage. At the Provost Farm Heritage Center in New Iberia during Sugar Cane Festival weekend, Davis issued the challenge on camera: "I, Jamie Davis, challenge you, Congresswoman Letlow, to a debate."
That is the strongest argument Davis has, and it is a fair one. A Senate seat represents all 64 parishes, and voters learn things in a live exchange that no television ad will show them. Davis put it more pointedly. "In a position where there's never been a debate, and we've never taken the stage together, it's almost like you're hiding something, and you're not being transparent," he said.
Letlow's answer is in how she has chosen to campaign. She describes a 64-parish tour built around roundtables in every parish. "I gain so much more just by having these roundtables and listening to people from every parish, instead of regurgitating the same stump speech over and over again," she said. That is a defensible way to run statewide in Louisiana, and plenty of voters in Ferriday or Ville Platte would rather sit across a table from a candidate than watch her trade lines with an opponent in a New Orleans studio.
It is also standard frontrunner strategy, and Davis knows it. Robert Collins, a Dillard University professor and Verite News columnist, said frontrunners often decide a debate would only give an opponent more publicity. "This is a sign that they're basically not taking him seriously," he said. A recent ABC News story found only 40% of 2026 Senate races have debates scheduled at all.
Davis has his own history here. After the first round of the Democratic primary in May narrowed the field to him and Gary Crockett, Davis declined to debate Crockett, drawing criticism from him, Verite reported. Davis went on to win the June 27 runoff. He says the difference is that he had already shared several forums with his primary rivals, while he and Letlow have never been on the same stage. Crockett, who wants Davis to win but has not formally endorsed him, said Davis should have debated him then and Letlow should debate Davis now.
So the race comes down to two bets. Davis, a Black farmer who has been working high school football games and knocking doors, is betting that the more Louisianans hear his story, the closer it gets. "We are in the streets, talking to people, knocking on doors; at sporting events like high school football and trying to be everywhere, just introducing Jamie Davis to the people of Louisiana," he said. Letlow is betting that a sitting congresswoman on a 64-parish tour, running as a Republican in Louisiana, does not need to hand her opponent a stage.
On the evidence so far, Letlow's bet is the safer one. Early voting runs Oct. 20 through Oct. 27, excluding Sunday, Oct. 25, and Election Day is Nov. 3, which leaves the Davis campaign less than three weeks to change the shape of a race that public polling, such as it is, has barely measured.
