Sen. Bill Cassidy loses Louisiana GOP primary to Trump-backed Letlow and Fleming

Five and a half years ago, after voting to convict President Donald Trump during his impeachment trial, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was fired by Republican voters while running for re-election.

Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming dominated Cassidy in Saturday’s Republican primary, according to the Associated Press.

With most results tabulated late in the evening, Letlow held on to 45 percent of the vote, Fleming at about 28 percent, and Cassidy at just under 25 percent. Since no candidate received 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming will advance to next month’s runoff for the Republican nomination. And Cassidy becomes the first elected Republican senator to lose his nomination since Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012.

Even though he wasn’t on the ballot, Trump is victorious because the primary in the solidly red state was the latest test of his support in the GOP nomination races and the president’s immense hold on the Republican Party.

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Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana punches a supporter during a campaign stop at a gun retailer and shooting range in Baton Rouge on May 15, 2026, the day before the state Senate primary. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

On Saturday morning, Trump took aim at Cassidy, arguing that the senator was “a disloyal disaster” and “a sleazy, terrible guy, who is BAD FOR LOUISIANA.”

And after Cassidy’s defeat, Trump returned to social media to gloat over the senator’s ouster, declaring “nice to see his political career is OVER!”

Cassidy, in a speech to supporters after conceding, said that “when you participate in democracy, sometimes things don’t go the way you want them to.”

“But you don’t pout, you don’t complain. You don’t claim the election was stolen…You don’t make up an excuse,” Cassidy said in an apparent attack on Trump. “You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you have that privilege. And that’s what I’m doing right now.”

Louisiana’s primary took place a week and a half after Indiana’s, where Trump-backed challengers ousted five incumbent Republican senators who last December teamed up with Democrats to defeat the president’s push for congressional redistricting in the GOP-dominated Midwest state.

Letlow, speaking to supporters during his first night of celebration, thanked Trump for his support.

U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., speaks to supporters during an election night event Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Matthew Hinton/AP Photo)

“Louisiana made it clear tonight: we are ready for strong conservative leadership that will stand with President Trump and never waver,” she added in a message on X.

Letlow was supported by Trump even before entering the race in January.

“Not only did he encourage me to get into this race, but to have his complete and total support was, wow, the honor of my life,” Letlow told Fox News Digital on the eve of the primary.

Trump’s support in the nomination race weighed heavily in a state he won by 22 points in his 2024 election victory.

“It’s the most powerful endorsement in the world,” Letlow said, adding that Louisiana Republicans “are big fans of the president.”

Letlow was also supported by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a top Trump ally.

Republican Senate candidate Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana speaks with Fox News Digital on the eve of the state’s primary election, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, May 15, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

After winning re-election six years ago, Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted in early 2021 to convict Trump after he was impeached by the House for his role in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters who aimed to overturn Congress’ certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

But since the start of Trump’s second term, Cassidy has supported the president’s agenda and his nominees, including voting to endorse Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement wanted revenge.

That’s because Cassidy, a physician, has been skeptical of Kennedy’s efforts to reform the nation’s health policies, including Kennedy’s efforts to roll back vaccine recommendations.

And Kennedy allies blamed Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, for helping to defeat the nomination of Surgeon General Casey Means, a close Kennedy ally and leading advocate of MAHA, after Cassidy failed to put it to a committee vote.

Meanwhile, Trump blasted the senator as a “very disloyal person” and on the eve of the primaries, the president took to social media to congratulate Letlow as a “highly respected America First Congresswoman.”

Cassidy highlighted his record during two terms in the Senate supporting Louisiana, which is one of the poorest states in the country. He has also shown support for Louisiana’s large oil and gas industry, which makes up about 15 percent of the state’s workforce.

“When people ask things like: Can you work with President Trump, I point out that he signed four bills that I wrote or negotiated,” the senator said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Friday. “By the way, we continue to work together.”

And Cassidy touted that he was “a conservative senator who keeps his promises.”

Cassidy and an allied super PAC spent more than $20 million on ads, according to AdImpact, a national ad tracking company. This total was more than Letlow and Fleming, combined, spent.

Some of these ads criticized Letlow for his past support of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs during his tenure at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Cassidy argued that Republican voters are “concerned about his changing stance on DEI.” She was very much in favor of DEI.”

Defending his record, Letlow told Fox News Digital that “in 2020, every time DEI was presented to us, we had no idea what it was at the time, and I quickly witnessed it.

Letlow also faced scrutiny from rivals for his failure to disclose more than 200 personal stock and bond transactions within the 45-day reporting deadline imposed on members of Congress.

She said it was “a reporting error on the part of my financial advisor. And once I realized it had happened, I quickly fixed it. It’s never happened since.”

And Letlow charged that Cassidy and Fleming’s criticism of him over DEI and stock trading were just “baseless attacks, desperate attacks.”

Letlow won her congressional seat in 2021, following the death of her husband, Luke Letlow, six days after she was sworn into the House of Representatives following her 2020 election victory for the seat she currently holds.

Fleming, who served as White House deputy chief of staff during Trump’s first term, argued that he was the most conservative candidate in the GOP Senate primary.

“They clearly see me as MAGA,” Fleming told Fox News Digital, referring to Louisiana Republicans. “I served throughout his first administration in various capacities. I was one of the first members of Congress to support him in 2016.”

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Meanwhile, Fleming claimed that Letlow was “not the prototype of a Trump supporter. She’s much more like a Democrat.”

The winner of the Republican runoff will be considered the heavy favorite in the general election to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands.