Sen. Bill Cassidy’s 2021 vote to convict Donald Trump at an impeachment trial hung over his reelection bid from the moment it was cast, and on Saturday Louisiana Republicans made clear it was a weight the two-term incumbent could not carry. Cassidy finished third in the state’s GOP Senate primary, trailing both U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who campaigned with Trump’s endorsement, and State Treasurer John Fleming, a former congressman and Trump administration official who pitched himself as a Trump loyalist.
The results set up a June 27 runoff between Letlow and Fleming. In a state Trump carried comfortably in 2024 and where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats, the runoff winner is widely expected to claim the seat in November’s general election.
Cassidy’s defeat is the latest in a series of primary losses for Republican officeholders who crossed the president. On May 5, Trump helped dislodge five of seven Indiana state senators who rejected his redistricting plan. Next Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky faces Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein in a primary where the president has made his preferences explicit, writing on social media that Massie is “a major Sleazebag” and urging voters to “get this LOSER out of politics.” Massie angered Trump by opposing his signature tax legislation, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and opposing the decision to go to war with Iran.
The intraparty turmoil is unfolding as Republicans face the possibility of losing control of Congress in the November midterms, with persistent inflation and sagging approval ratings weighing on the party’s electoral prospects.
Cassidy waged an aggressive campaign to convince voters he should not be counted out. His campaign was expected to have spent roughly $9.6 million on advertising through May 16, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, and the Louisiana Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting him, was on track to spend $12.3 million. By comparison, Letlow’s campaign spent roughly $3.9 million, while a super PAC backing her, the Accountability Project, spent about $6 million. Fleming’s campaign spent about $1.5 million.
Cassidy and the super PAC supporting him ran ads attacking Letlow for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives during a 2020 interview for a university presidency, an issue Trump has sought to make a flashpoint. But the attacks did not shift the race’s fundamental dynamic: Trump’s endorsement was the currency that mattered.
“Our country is not about one individual,” Cassidy told supporters after his loss. “It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about the Constitution.”
Letlow, by contrast, opened her victory speech by thanking Trump, calling him “the best president this country has ever had” while flanked by her two young children. Asked about Cassidy’s impeachment vote, she said it was “a sign that he had turned his back on the Louisiana voters.”
Trump unloaded on Cassidy the morning of the election, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media. Cassidy offered a thinly veiled response later that night. “Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity,” he said, “and I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet.”
Trump cheered the result on social media after Cassidy’s loss, writing “that’s what you get by voting to Impeach an innocent man.”
Letlow’s path to the runoff was unconventional. In 2020, while she was a college administrator, her husband Luke was elected to the U.S. House but died of COVID-19 before he could be sworn in. Letlow ran for and won the seat in a March 2021 special election and was reelected in 2022 and 2024. She considered running for Senate last year but only entered the race after Trump announced his endorsement in January. By that time, Fleming had already jumped in, but Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry was looking for a better-known challenger to Cassidy and suggested Letlow to the president.
John Martin, a 68-year-old retired engineer in south Louisiana, captured the dynamic that decided the race. He said he would vote for Letlow because he remained upset by Cassidy’s impeachment vote, holding a campaign flyer showing her alongside Trump. “I know a lot more about Cassidy than I do about her,” Martin said. “But if she’s endorsed by Trump, I’m going to believe that.”
The primary was also scrambled by election changes. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision gutting a part of the Voting Rights Act prompted Louisiana leaders to delay House primaries to allow redistricting, a shift that raised the possibility of confusion at the polls. Cassidy also criticized a new primary system enacted last year that required voters to request a partisan ballot instead of the state’s previous all-party primary.
“The process that was set up was destined to be confusing,” Cassidy told reporters on Friday, adding that some voters called his office to say they had been unable to vote for him.
Dadrius Lanus, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said his team fielded hundreds of calls from voters who said the changes undermined their ability to vote. “A lot of the information should have gotten to voters well in advance,” Lanus said. “It’s literally been a whirlwind of confusion.”
On the Democratic side, Jamie Davis advanced to a runoff, but the second spot remained too close to call between Nicholas Albares and Gary Crockett. The Democratic nominee will face an uphill contest against the Republican runoff winner in November.
Cassidy had served as chair of the Senate health committee and had been publicly critical of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over funding cuts for vaccine development — a stance that further complicated his relationship with Trump. The president also blamed Cassidy for the failed nomination of Casey Means for surgeon general, after Means raised doubts about vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B, a practice Cassidy supports. Trump withdrew the nomination and criticized the senator.
Saturday’s result leaves Louisiana Republicans to choose between Letlow, who has tied her candidacy closely to the president, and Fleming, a former U.S. House member who served in the Trump administration and was elected state treasurer in 2023. Both have aligned themselves with Trump’s political project. The winner of the June 27 runoff will be heavily favored to replace Cassidy in the Senate.