Independent Louisiana journalism.
Troublemaking truthtellers.
Reporting on the races, stakes and decisions shaping Louisiana.
The five Democrats running in Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District offered few real policy clashes at a forum Tuesday night. Instead, the sharper divide was over style, strategy and how forcefully Democrats should confront both a radicalized Republican Party and their own party’s failures in places like rural Louisiana. That made the Young Democrats of Livingston…
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Nick Albares said Thursday that his brother, David Albares, has died, and that he will temporarily step away from the campaign trail to be with his family. “On Tuesday, March 24, 2026 I learned my brother died,” Albares said in a statement. “My brother and I were very close and we…
The Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee on Saturday moved ahead with a long-debated endorsement meeting, formally backing candidates in the U.S. Senate race, all six congressional districts, and several statewide contests ahead of the party’s new closed-primary cycle. By the end of the day, the party had endorsed Jamie Davis for U.S. Senate; Lauren Jewett…
Matt Gromlich says he is running for Congress because too many people in Louisiana’s 4th District have gotten used to a kind of representation that feels distant, performative, and largely absent from everyday life. A Shreveport educator now in his 14th year teaching, Gromlich is challenging House Speaker Mike Johnson as a Democrat in one…
Democratic congressional candidate Tania Nyman is not running as a generic issue-sheet progressive. In an interview with The Bayou Progressive, Nyman framed her candidacy in Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District as an extension of years of advocacy around public schools, fair maps, democratic accountability and the preservation of public institutions she argues are steadily being hollowed…
With Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District open for the first time in years, Democratic candidate Lindsay “Rubia” Garcia is trying to make the case that this is not the cycle for cautious politics. In an interview with The Bayou Progressive, Garcia described herself as a teacher, advocate, organizer, and newly minted lawyer who has spent years…
John Day is making an unusually direct case for his candidacy in Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District: Democrats, he argues, do not need a symbolic opponent for U.S. Representative Clay Higgins. They need someone willing to campaign aggressively, talk plainly, and treat the race like it can actually be won. In an interview with The Bayou…
Gary Crockett is running for the U.S. Senate as a political outsider with a blunt argument: Louisiana does not need another talking head in Washington. It needs someone focused on bringing results home. In an interview with The Bayou Progressive, Crockett, a Democrat, framed his campaign around a mix of personal biography, economic frustration and…
At La Divina Italian Café in Baton Rouge, Democratic congressional candidate Jessee Fleenor made a simple argument for why he belongs in the race for Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District: the people in one of the state’s poorest and most rural districts do not need another polished lawyer or political climber pretending to understand their lives….
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Nick Albares has picked up the sole endorsement of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO, adding organized labor support to his campaign as he works to build early momentum in Louisiana’s U.S. Senate race. The endorsement was announced Monday and gives Albares a notable regional labor backing as candidates continue jockeying for…
Tania Nyman, a veteran community advocate known for her fierce battles over local public schools and city governance, has officially launched her campaign for the Democratic nomination in Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District. Speaking to a crowd of supporters at the Mid City Ballroom in Baton Rouge, Nyman framed her candidacy as a necessary escalation of…
Republican Paul Sawyer won the special election for Louisiana House District 69 on Saturday, defeating Democrat Angela Roberts in a closely watched race that drew the highest turnout of any contest on the statewide ballot. Unofficial results from the Louisiana Secretary of State show Sawyer receiving 2,587 votes, or 53 percent, to Roberts’ 1,945 votes,…
The Louisiana AFL-CIO has endorsed Democrat Lauren Jewett in Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District, giving the educator and union member a significant institutional boost as she emerges as her party’s presumptive nominee following the withdrawal of James “Jim” Long. The endorsement is an early but meaningful marker in the race to challenge Republican House Majority Leader…
A newly revealed police report detailing a rape allegation against Louisiana Republican congressional candidate and state senator Blake Miguez is casting a dark cloud over a campaign that had just received a major boost from Donald Trump. The report, first obtained and published by The Atlantic, describes a 2007 incident in which Miguez’s former girlfriend…
On March 21, the Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee is scheduled to convene at the state capitol in Baton Rouge and vote on endorsing candidates in this year’s congressional races. Under normal circumstances, that might not raise many eyebrows (though the process has been historically messy). But this year is not normal. For the first…
A special education teacher and union member is challenging Steve Scalise with a blunt promise: stop treating District 1 like an afterthought, and start “showing up.” Lauren Jewett talks like someone who’s spent a career dealing with the consequences of systems that don’t work. Not in theory — in real time, with real people, and…
In the race to fill Louisiana’s House District 69 seat, voters were promised a comprehensive look at their future representative. But when the microphones went live on Thursday night, only one candidate was in the room to make her case. Hosted by the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison Reform Coalition, The Bayou Progressive, the Louisiana…
Following the resignation of Republican State Representative Paula Davis in late 2025, the race for Louisiana House District 69 has drawn a crowded field for the March 14, 2026 special election. While three Republicans — Adam Beach, Lynn Coxe Graham, and Paul Sawyer — battle for the conservative base, one candidate is offering a distinct alternative…
Louisiana’s 2026 congressional elections will move forward under the state’s existing six-district map after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule by the end of 2025 on a high-stakes challenge to the boundaries. That delay effectively ends Republican lawmakers’ hopes of forcing another round of redistricting ahead of next year’s midterms — and preserves, at…
Louisiana voters are about to experience the most significant change to the state’s election system in decades. After years of operating under a “jungle primary” model, Louisiana will begin using a closed-party primary system for a limited set of offices starting in 2026. The shift is technical, but the consequences are very real for how…
Louisiana politics picked up another unexpected shakeup this week with the resignation of Rep. Paula Davis, a Republican who has represented House District 69 since 2016 and built a reputation as one of the Legislature’s more independent-minded conservatives. In a letter submitted to Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, Davis announced she would step down effective…
On a bright Monday afternoon, the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol filled once again with the chants, songs, and righteous anger of a movement that refuses to die. Banners from the Power Coalition for Equity & Justice waved above the crowd as speakers called for what should be simple but remains contested: fair maps…
Former Gov. John Bel Edwards announced on Monday that he will not run for the U.S. Senate in 2026, ending months of speculation that had frozen the Democratic field and leaving the party with a steep uphill climb in one of the nation’s most conservative states. After giving it careful consideration, we have decided that…
Helena Moreno will be the next mayor of New Orleans after securing a first-round victory in Saturday’s primary, avoiding a runoff and cementing her position as one of the city’s most prominent political figures. Moreno, a Democrat and current City Council President, captured roughly 55% of the vote, easily surpassing the 50-percent threshold needed…
