Louisiana Voters Just Ended Bill Cassidy’s Senate Career After Two Terms and One Key Vote – RedState
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 in the Republican primary. He will not qualify for the second round on June 27. His career in the Senate is over.
The two candidates who ran, Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming, now face off in a runoff that will determine which of them will represent the Louisiana Republican Party against the Democratic nominee in November. In Louisiana, these general elections are a formality. The real race ends on June 27.
THERE WERE SIGNS: There’s a very good chance Bill Cassidy won’t even make his own runoff on Saturday
The impeachment vote that marked the end of a career
Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans to vote to convict Trump following the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol. The vote made him a target. The Louisiana Republican Party officially censored him. Trump counted the points. And over the next four years, every poll, every challenger, and every support 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. Reportedly, Cassidy was the only Republican Sen. Trump team actively targeted for defeat this cycle. Saturday’s result suggests the efforts paid off.
What runoff really decides
With Cassidy eliminated, the race narrows down to a question that cuts to the center of Republican politics heading into the midterm elections: Does supporting Trump seal the deal, or does a candidate who won office without him have a viable path forward?
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’s heading into the runoff with that support. Fleming, current Louisiana state treasurer and 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. 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 support.
The runoff is a live test of these two different varieties of Trump-aligned conservatism: the candidate the president chose and the candidate who was already there.
