California Governor Gavin Newsom called MAGA-aligned Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry‘s decision to suspend a primary election after approximately 45,000 ballots had already been cast, in an effort to redraw the state’s congressional to gain Republican seats, “stone cold racism.”
[NOTE: In May, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s existing congressional map, which included two majority-Black congressional districts, ruling it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.]
After suspending the election, Landry told 60 Minutes‘ Cecilia Vega that the ballots already cast have been discarded and that voters will get to vote again in November.
When Vega said, “You say that like it’s not a big deal,” Landry replied, “It’s not my fault,” and that “if anybody has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court.”
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry says that if anyone is upset over suspended primaries, they should take it to the Supreme Court. https://t.co/IfbnOkBZxN pic.twitter.com/Ym904i5fea
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 10, 2026
As seen below at a press conference, Newsom called Landry’s action “Stone cold racism [at] a scale I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, never have seen in my lifetime.” Newsom added, “It’s all happening, bringing us back to a pre-1960s world. It’s jaw-dropping what’s happening. It’s jaw-dropping what Governor Landry did.”
The rush to silence Black voters ahead of the 2026 election is stone cold racism.
It’s Jim Crow 2.0. pic.twitter.com/cz3pvvzBtw
— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) May 14, 2026
Newsom said Landry did it “to redistrict two districts, to eliminate Black representation.”
He added, “Anti-woke is anti-Black. All of these attacks on DEI is anti-Black. The level of racism is sick.” Newsom mentioned “the number of African Americans who have been eliminated from key positions and posts, the Pentagon and elsewhere, it’s sick. It’s happening in the United States, in the open, and it needs to be called out.”
With the video, Newsom wrote: “The rush to silence Black voters ahead of the 2026 election is stone cold racism. It’s Jim Crow 2.0.”