Trump-Backed Pair Advances After Cassidy Primary Defeat

Louisiana Republicans delivered a clear verdict on Senator Bill Cassidy’s decade in office. The two-term incumbent finished third in the May 16 primary and will not advance, ending his bid for a third term.

Voters gave Representative Julia Letlow 44.9 percent and State Treasurer John Fleming 28.3 percent, according to the Associated Press. Cassidy received 24.7 percent. Because no candidate reached a majority, Letlow and Fleming will meet in a June 27 runoff.

Cassidy’s 2021 vote to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial stood at the center of the contest. Trump repeatedly attacked the senator on social media and endorsed Letlow early. Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate health committee, had tried to mend ties by supporting several Trump priorities, including the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. Those efforts did not restore enough support among primary voters.

In his concession speech Cassidy did not name Trump. He told supporters that participants in democracy sometimes lose and should not “pout,” “whine,” or claim an election was stolen. Trump responded on Truth Social that Cassidy’s “disloyalty” had become “a part of legend.”

Letlow, a three-term House member first elected in a 2021 special election, enters the runoff with the president’s endorsement and the backing of Governor Jeff Landry. Fleming, who served in Congress until 2017 and later worked in the Trump White House, positioned himself as the more consistent Trump ally. Both candidates will now compete for the nomination that almost certainly leads to the general election in the heavily Republican state.

The outcome leaves only two of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump still in office. It also continues a pattern in which Trump-backed challengers have removed or weakened critics inside the party.