Blake Miguez and Chauna Banks are heading to a runoff election for Louisiana's 6th Congressional District, setting up a Dec. 12 finish to a race that will decide who fills the open seat. The two candidates moved on after a crowded field was narrowed to a final pair.
Banks, who served on the Metro Council from 2013 to 2024, has tried to frame the race around costs that voters feel every day. During WBRZ's candidate forum, she said she is concerned about the Iran war's effect on prices for consumers. That message now carries into a one-on-one runoff, where the campaign will turn from broad appeals to a direct choice between two sharply different political resumes.
Miguez comes into the runoff as a State Senator from District 22, a seat that includes parts of Iberia, Lafayette and New Iberia parishes. He and Banks beat Republicans Rick Edmonds, Larry Davis III, Monique Appeaning, Michael Mebruer and Stephen Wagley, Democrats Lindsay Garcia and Pat Forbes, and Libertarian Rufus Craig to reach the next round. The race is for the seat vacated by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, who decided not to seek re-election at the end of a redistricting fight that left Louisiana with a single majority-minority congressional district.
One of the sharpest moments in the campaign came when a formal complaint was lodged against Miguez over whether he lived outside the district he was seeking to represent. The attorney general's office later investigated and said it found his primary residence is in New Iberia, even though he has a home in East Baton Rouge Parish. That answer removed one line of attack, but it did not remove the political question underneath it: whether voters in Louisiana's 6th Congressional District will see him as their best fit for the seat.
The next test comes Saturday, Dec. 12, when voters return to the polls and choose between Miguez and Banks. The runoff will not just settle a vacancy; it will decide which of the two claims the district after a race shaped by redistricting, residency and the concerns voters bring to the ballot box.
