President Donald Trump’s drive for political revenge faces a key test Saturday in Louisiana, the place he’s seeking to defeat Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy 5 years after Cassidy voted to convict him in his second impeachment.
Trump has backed Rep. Julia Letlow in opposition to Cassidy, although a second challenger — Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming — has run a spirited race and made it doubtless that no candidate receives a majority of the vote, which might set off a June 27 runoff.
It is a vital time for Trump’s skill to point out he can unseat fellow Republicans who cross him. The Louisiana election comes three days earlier than Trump hopes to beat Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in his primary, a race that has drawn extra consideration.
Unseating a senator can be a brand new feat for Trump. While a few of his intraparty detractors within the Senate have chosen to not search reelection quite than face his wrath, he has by no means backed a primary challenger to a GOP senator who misplaced that primary. And it’s uncommon for a Republican senator to lose renomination — the final time it occurred was in 2017, when an appointed senator, Luther Strange of Alabama, was defeated in a primary runoff.
Trump reiterated his endorsement of Letlow in a social media post geared toward turning out voters for her Saturday, saying she is “a winner who will NEVER let you down.”
He wrote within the prolonged publish that Cassidy, “is a disloyal disaster. His entire past campaign for the Senate was about ‘TRUMP.’”
Cassidy is without doubt one of the few Republicans left in Congress who voted to convict Trump throughout a Senate impeachment trial over his position within the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol. He represents a solidly crimson state that backed Trump by 22 proportion factors in 2024.
More just lately, Cassidy – a doctor – has had rigidity with Trump as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. While Cassidy voted to verify Trump’s well being secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he has split with the administration on different elements of its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Last month, after Trump needed to pull his nominee for surgeon normal, Casey Means, the president blamed Cassidy.
On the marketing campaign path, Cassidy has sought to painting the race as about “the present and the future” and has boasted about having a superb working relationship with Trump regardless of the impeachment vote.
“I’m not claiming the president loves me — no — but you can work with people even if you don’t love each other if you’ve got a common goal,” Cassidy mentioned Friday on NCS’s “Situation Room.” “And my goal is to make my country and my state — and everybody who lives here — better off.”
Cassidy has lengthy had a big monetary benefit within the primary and used it to nearly completely assault Letlow, saying the race is hers to lose. He has centered on her background in larger training and previous efforts to advertise variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives that are actually poisonous within the GOP.
Yet within the remaining days of the primary, his two challengers have been battling each other.
Fleming, a former congressman who has been concerned in Louisiana politics for many years, has sought to painting himself as extra aligned with Trump than Letlow, particularly after working within the White House throughout Trump’s first time period.
Letlow’s marketing campaign has labeled Fleming a “Never Trumper” and, together with an out of doors group, focused him on a variety of different points, together with his work as a lobbyist earlier than he grew to become state treasurer.
Cassidy has been endorsed by Senate GOP leaders, as is customized for incumbents, although nationwide Republicans have in any other case stored their distance from the primary. Not solely is Trump backing Letlow, however so is the state’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry.
The election is going on beneath new and weird circumstances. Landry just lately postponed House primaries – however stored the Senate primary scheduled for Saturday – in response to a Supreme Court ruling on redistricting. The election is also the primary beneath a brand new closed primary system the place unaffiliated voters – a key bloc for Cassidy – should fill out further paperwork in the event that they need to take part within the GOP primary.
Cassidy’s marketing campaign supervisor, Katie Larkin, issued an announcement Friday suggesting Landry was behind an “intentionally difficult process” for voters, saying, “The Governor closed the primary and continuously meddled in this election to support Julia Letlow.”
Landry’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark, however in a Fox Business interview Friday, he predicted Letlow would end first within the primary and took a shot at Cassidy and Fleming.
“She’s had two men that have just not been very southerly about the way they’ve treated her,” Landry mentioned.
While Trump’s political capital is on the road Saturday, the primary can be a check for allies of Kennedy, the well being secretary. A gaggle related to Kennedy’s agenda, MAHA PAC, has spent six figures opposing Cassidy and supporting Letlow, although different tremendous PACs have spent far more within the primary.