In a startling reversal, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves said Friday that he will not seek reelection to Congress this year, after saying for weeks that he was committed to run but hadn’t decided in which district.
The Baton Rouge Republican said it would be unfair to constituents for him to run in a district that he expects federal courts to strike down after the election.
Graves has been mulling his political options since the U.S. Supreme Court last month directed Louisiana election officials to use a map drawn by Gov. Jeff Landry and the Republican Legislature in January that created a second majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana. The second Black district was created in part by carving up Graves’ 6th House District, where White voters had been in the majority and which was considered a safe Republican seat.
“I would suspect what happened is that redistricting left him with equally unpalatable alternatives,” John Couvillon, a Baton Rouge-based pollster and political analyst, said on Friday of Graves’ decision.
One option for Graves would have been to seek reelection to the 6th District, which under the new map stretches like a seatbelt from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. But in the redrawn district, 55% of the voters are African-American, and President Joe Biden won it with 59% of the vote in 2020 over former President Donald Trump.
The early frontrunner for that seat is state Sen. Cleo Fields, a Democrat from Baton Rouge who served for four years in the U.S. House in the 1990s.
A second option for Graves would have been to challenge U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, a Republican from northeast Louisiana whose 5th Congressional District now extends south to include 40% of Graves’ old district in metro Baton Rouge. But Letlow is the only woman in Louisiana’s eight-member congressional district, and she won the seat in a special election after her husband Luke Letlow, a close friend of Graves, died just after winning it.
A third option would have been to challenge U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican whose 3rd Congressional District covers Acadiana. But Higgins has proven to be extremely popular with his voters.
Graves had $4.3 million in cash in his latest campaign finance report, more than double what Letlow reported and 20 times what Higgins had.
Still, the politics would have been challenging, and the risks were huge: Had Graves taken on a GOP incumbent and lost, it could have ended his political career.
“I suspect in the end, being presented with no good alternatives led him to conclude that there is not a path to victory in the current configuration of congressional districts,” Couvillon said.
Graves needed to decide fairly soon, because qualifying for congressional races takes place in a month.
First elected to the House in 2014, Graves, now 52, appears to have two options if he wants to run again for office, say political observers.
Graves can hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the newly drawn map as racially gerrymandered. That’s what a three-judge federal panel did in April, but the high court directed Louisiana to pause that ruling and use the map anyway, saying there wasn’t enough time to create a new one.
If the map is ultimately tossed, as Graves predicts, he could run in his now-defunct district in two years.
Or, in 2026, Graves could challenge U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who has enraged conservatives in Louisiana by breaking with Trump after rioters provoked by Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cassidy has been aggressively criticizing Biden of late, but has yet to endorse Trump.
For now, Graves appears to be betting on the first option – that the new maps will not last.
"It is evident that a run in any temporary district will cause actual permanent damage to Louisiana’s great representation in Congress," Graves said in a statement explaining why he won’t seek reelection. "Campaigning in any of these districts now is not fair to any of the Louisianans who will inevitably be tossed into yet another district next year."
Before Friday's announcement, while Graves was mulling his options, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and the Louisiana Republican Party all seemed to box him in by saying he ought to run for reelection and by endorsing Letlow and Higgins in their races.
Higgins, in an interview with Politico last month, said Graves would receive plenty of help from him and others if he ran for reelection in the 6th District.
But if Graves challenged him or Letlow, Higgins said, “he'll find that to be a very rocky path.”
Graves’ decision leaves Fields as the biggest name in the race for the 6th Congressional District. Fields reported having $600,000 cash on hand in his initial campaign finance report.
He still could face a major challenger. State Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, said Friday that he continues to eye the race.
Graves’ decision punctuates a precipitous fall for a congressman who was riding high less than a year ago as a newly anointed adviser to then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California.
But conservatives overthrew McCarthy and in the process, Graves angered Scalise, according to numerous press reports, by seemingly not providing enough support for either of them to succeed McCarthy.
Graves also provoked Landry’s ire by backing Stephen Waguespack during last year’s governor’s race.
During his 10 years in Congress, Graves has repeatedly shown an ability to secure federal dollars for anti-flood and coastal restoration projects. He was a reliable vote for Trump during his presidency and against Biden during his.
Graves in his statement lamented that his departure from Congress will end his chances of becoming the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
“This committee is the throttle for federal action on traffic, bridges, railroads and airports – and Louisiana priorities like ports and Mississippi River commerce, coastal and hurricane and flood protection, disaster response and recovery, national defense and Coast Guard, economic development and more,” he said. “Admittedly, it is a serious disappointment to miss the historic opportunity to champion Louisiana’s priorities in this committee.”
