Bill Cassidy voted to convict Donald Trump in February 2021. Louisiana Republicans spent five years deciding what to do about it. On Saturday, they gave their answer.
Cassidy, who has represented Louisiana in the U.S. Senate since 2015, did not finish in the top two of the Republican primary. He will not advance to the June 27 runoff. His Senate career is over.
The two candidates who did advance, Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming, now face each other in a runoff that will determine which of them represents the Louisiana Republican Party against the Democratic nominee in November. In Louisiana, that general election is a formality. The real race ends June 27.
THERE WERE SIGNS: There’s a Really Good Chance Bill Cassidy Doesn’t Even Make His Own Run-Off on Saturday
The Impeachment Vote That Defined a Career’s End
Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The vote made him a target. The Republican Party of Louisiana censured him formally. Trump kept score. And for the next four years, every poll, every challenger, and every endorsement in this race was shaped by that single vote.
Trump endorsed Letlow on January 18, 2026. She entered the race two days later. The message was unambiguous: Louisiana is one of the most Trump-aligned states in the country, and the president wanted Cassidy gone. According to reports, Cassidy was the only Republican senator Trump’s team actively targeted for defeat in this cycle. Saturday’s result suggests the effort worked.
What the Runoff Actually Decides
With Cassidy out, the race narrows to a question that cuts to the center of Republican politics heading into the midterms: does Trump’s endorsement close the deal, or does a candidate who earned his position without it have a viable path?
Letlow represents Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District in the northeastern part of the state. She entered the race with the full weight of the Trump-Landry coalition behind her, and she runs into the runoff carrying that endorsement. Fleming, Louisiana’s current State Treasurer and a former congressman who represented the 4th District from 2009 to 2017, built his campaign from the ground up. He was in this race before Letlow was. He was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, served in Trump’s first administration, and consolidated rural Louisiana without the president’s formal backing.
The runoff is a live test of those two different varieties of Trump-aligned conservatism — the candidate the president chose, and the candidate who was already there.
