WASHINGTON — Ever since his GOP colleagues drew up a new map that made him a long shot to get reelected to the 6th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves has received lots of advice, even veiled warnings, about which of Louisiana's six House districts he should run for this fall.
BREAKING UPDATE: Garret Graves says he will not seek re-election to Congress. Here's why.
The Baton Rouge Republican will only say that he's running, but he won't say where.
Everyone else, it seems, has an opinion about what he should do. Legally, Graves can run in any district he wants.
But three of the six districts are more or less off the table. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, hold two top positions in the Republican-led House. Challenging them is widely seen as folly.
Going after U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans, the delegation's lone Democrat, seems equally foolhardy, since Carter represents a district where Black and White Democratic voters are in the majority.
That leaves three choices for Graves: Seek reelection to the 6th District, which has been redrawn to put Black voters in the majority. Or run against a GOP incumbent in one of the other two districts: the 3rd, now represented by Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, and the 5th, now represented by Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Start.
Each path has pros and cons. The biggest chunk of Graves' old district is now in Letlow's, but challenging Letlow might be the most politically risky for Graves over the long run, observers say. Higgins is unpopular with some Republicans, but beloved among many acolytes of former President Donald Trump, making that avenue one of great risks and rewards. Staying put, meanwhile, would be the simplest and perhaps do the most to keep Graves' standing in the state GOP. But it's unlikely to end in victory.
One clear advantage Graves has over his rivals: money. He had $4.3 million in his campaign war chest as of the end of March, the latest report available. Higgins had just $200,532. Letlow had $1.6 million on hand.
Graves will have to make a decision shortly. Congressional candidates must qualify from July 17-19.
Congresswoman Julia Letlow, R-Start, speaking in Bastrop, La on Friday, October 20, 2022.
Challenging Letlow
Going after Letlow might make the most sense mathematically, if not politically.
Louisiana legislators in January transformed Graves’ 6th Congressional District from one that was almost two-thirds White into one where 57% of residents are Black. In doing so, they moved 40% of Graves' old precincts into Letlow's 5th District — the largest share moved into any one district.
The former Graves precincts that now belong to Letlow include parts of Ascension Parish, where Graves won 82% of the vote in 2022; parts of East Baton Rouge, where Graves carried 77% in 2022; and Livingston Parish, where he polled at 87%. All are heavily populated.
Those are the reasons Graves could run in the 5th.
The cons are many, however. For starters, Letlow is the widow of his good friend, Luke Letlow, who was elected to the seat now held by his wife in 2020 but died of COVID before he could take office. Graves served as a pallbearer at Luke Letlow's funeral.
Meanwhile, the bulk of Julia Letlow’s district is nowhere near Graves' stomping grounds. It's largely rural and centered in northeast and central Louisiana. In 2022, before the district was redrawn, she won with 68% of the vote.
Graves hasn’t made any recent public appearances in north or central Louisiana. His political statements have focused on coastal restoration, flood protection and insurance, and hurricane recovery — all vital to south Louisiana. His contribution to the Farm Bill is a bid to restrict imported shrimp, which doesn’t resonate with the growers of sugar cane, cotton and soybeans north of Interstate 10.
On top of all that, Letlow is the only woman in the Louisiana delegation and sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which gets first crack at deciding how federal monies are spent. And she's been endorsed by Johnson, Scalise, Gov. Jeff Landry, the Louisiana Republican Party and former President Donald Trump. The same group has endorsed Higgins.
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, during the Mayorkas impeachment hearing
What about Higgins?
While the biggest chunk of Graves' old district went to Letlow's 5th District, another big share went to Higgins' Acadiana-centered 3rd District — a district that Graves may be better positioned to represent.
Could Graves take on the pugnacious former sheriff's deputy?
One change in the new maps is that Johnson’s 4th District in the western part of the state now stretches down to Calcasieu Parish. Most of Johnson's new 85,486 Calcasieu constituents come from Republican precincts in and around Lake Charles. That leaves Higgins primarily with precincts in that area that favored Democratic candidates.
“Theoretically, in a race this fall, there wouldn’t be a substantial Democrat," said John Couvillon, a Baton Rouge pollster. “Democrats could see Graves as a more moderate choice” than Higgins.
Meanwhile, a similarly large chunk of precincts in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes have been transferred from Graves’ 6th District to the 3rd District. Graves carried those precincts with 80% of the vote in 2022. He might still do well with those voters, who he still represents.
To boot, some in Lafayette’s Republican business community are dissatisfied with Higgins, whose tenure in Congress has been marked by incendiary statements and occasional conspiracy theories — such as the idea that "ghost buses" filled by FBI agents were responsible for the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Fourteen Acadiana businesspersons, lobbyists and elected officials — mostly Republicans, but some Democrats — interviewed for this report said basically the same thing on condition they not be identified by name for fear of angering sitting congresspersons. They all said they'd prefer a representative who’ll take their calls and focus more on economic development than on culture wars.
“Graves is good for coastal. He’s good for oil and gas. He has the young professional crowd,” said one. “He’d have a strong shot in the 3rd District.”
A group of Lafayette business leaders in 2022 drafted conservative prosecutor Holden Hoggatt to challenge Higgins. A number of former Acadiana congressional leaders, including John Breaux, Chris Johns, and Charles Boustany, backed Hoggatt.
It didn't go well. Higgins dispatched him without a runoff, securing nearly two-thirds of the vote.
But Graves, unlike Hoggatt, is a seasoned campaigner and already well-known to the business community, particularly those connected to the oil and gas industry.
Higgins shouldn't be underestimated, however. Even with limited money, Higgins has been easily reelected every two years since December 2016, when he defeated Scott Angelle, who had served in a number of executive positions during his long political career and almost made the runoff in the 2015 governor's race.
Neither Graves nor Higgins would comment for this report.
U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, tours part of the Comite River Diversion Canal project where stone has been laid down along the canal on June 29, 2023 in Zachary.
Staying put also an option
Though political operatives can conjure a scenario in which Graves pulls off a victory in his reconfigured 6th District, most handicappers give him little chance in a district that links predominantly Black neighborhoods from Baton Rouge to Lafayette to Alexandria to Natchitoches to Shreveport.
A June 2 poll conducted by Greg Rigamer, of Metairie, found state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, who in the 1990s held a congressional seat centered in Baton Rouge, had 88% name recognition in the new 6th District, versus 65% for Graves. In a trial heat, Fields received 38% of the ballot, while Graves got 19%. Other Black candidates scored well below the 26% of undecided voters.
“I rarely use the term dominant, but in this particular survey, Sen. Fields is in a very strong position,” Rigamer said. “This will be a challenging race for Rep. Graves — that was the intention."
Various publications in the business of prognostication have essentially counted Graves out for the 6th District. Inside Election calls the Louisiana 6th “likely Democratic.” Crystal Ball said the district “does not seem winnable for a Republican.”
Nonetheless, Johnson and the Louisiana Republican Party have said Graves should stay and compete in the 6th District.
Other observers noted that Graves would effectively commit career suicide with Republicans should he challenge Higgins, Letlow or any of the other incumbent Republican colleagues and lose.
While winning reelection in the 6th District would be tough, Graves would garner a cache of goodwill among Louisiana Republicans — even in defeat — for not challenging a fellow Republican in the delegation. For some, that's an argument that Graves' best long game is to stay put.
“I think he has a better-than-even chance to knock off Higgins, but strategically, his best option is falling on the sword,” said one GOP political operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He’d have no second act, particularly if he loses.”