The big political story for 2026 will be the U.S. Senate race as Republican incumbent Bill Cassidy faces several challengers from his own party. State Treasurer John Fleming, state senator Blake Miguez, state representative Julie Emerson and PSC Commissioner Eric Skrmetta are seeking to unseat Cassidy. Political analyst Bernie Pinsonat said Cassidy has one big advantage.
“He’s the incumbent,” said Pinsonat. “He’s gonna have $10-$12 million. You can’t count him out, but he’ gonna have a really tough re-election.”
Cassidy is facing a difficult re-election campaign because he voted to impeach President Donald Trump 2021 after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which angered many pro-Trump Republicans.
Adding to Cassidy’s challenge is the change to a closed primary election system. Pinsonat said registered no party voters can vote in the primaries, but the Secretary of State’s office and the campaigns will need to educate voters.
“There’ll be a lot of money and time and effort spent on educating them on that they can actually vote in the Democratic primary or the Republican primary, they just have to declare,” Pinsonat said.
The primary election will take place in May, a party primary run-off will take place in June. The general election will be in November.
The 2026 legislative session begins in March. Pinsonat expects a quiet session after lawmakers in 2025 approved a package of property insurance reform laws. Some of those measures didn’t got into effect until January 1st, so Pinsonat doesn’t expect Governor Landry to be pushing even more insurance reform bills..
Pinsonat said, “He thinks insurance rates will go down, so he’s going to be discouraging legislators to file all kinds of new legislation related to reforming insurance.”