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Senator Bill Cassidy has tried to turn a resurfaced 2020 university interview into a headline-grabbing attack on Representative Julia Letlow. The footage shows Letlow, then a university administrator, talking about creating a diversity, equity and inclusion office. Cassidy’s campaign has plastered the clips across social media and called them a “bombshell.” But the move looks more like a Hail Mary than a knockout punch. Letlow is fighting back, President Donald Trump has backed her, and the polls show Cassidy trailing badly.
What Cassidy is trying to do
Cassidy’s team wants conservative voters to see Letlow as soft on DEI and “progressive.” The campaign points to a search-committee interview where Letlow said she would create “a division of diversity, equity and inclusion with leadership that goes all the way to the top, with a full staff,” and called faculty gender diversity “shameful.” Those sound bites are useful for a campaign ad, but they don’t tell the whole story. Cassidy’s play is obvious: define Letlow fast before primary voters lock in their choices.
Letlow’s response — and why it’s landed
Letlow pushed back hard and fast. She said DEI was once pitched as a tool to lift students up, but then “the left completely hijack[ed] any of those efforts and turn[ed] it into indoctrination of our students, Marxism, holding people down instead of lifting them up.” That line plays to the base. Add a former university president saying those interview answers were routine administrative talk, and let’s be honest — the clip stops looking like a revelation and starts looking like political theater. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump publicly endorsed Letlow and has publicly criticized Cassidy on other fronts, which nationalizes the contest in a way Cassidy clearly did not want.
Why this fight matters for the Louisiana primary
It’s not just about one clip. Quantus Insights polling shows Letlow leading the Republican primary by a wide margin, with Cassidy down in the high teens. When your incumbent senator is trailing like that, desperate ads are the predictable result. But conservative primary voters care about two things: who opposes the left and who can win. Letlow’s message that she’s fought against the current of woke DEI while serving in Congress fits that pitch. Cassidy’s attack might rile up a newsroom, but it isn’t moving the needle with the voters who will actually vote.
Bottom line
Cassidy rolled out a neat little video and expected fireworks. Instead he exposed himself as the candidate who has to scrape for headlines while a Trump-endorsed opponent consolidates support. If Cassidy wants to turn this race around, he needs to do more than replay a three‑year‑old interview. He should offer clear conservative policy contrasts and remind voters why he deserves re‑election — not hope that a clipped university answer will save him. For Republican voters in Louisiana, the real question is simple: who will stand up to the left and win? Right now the answer looks pretty clear to them.
