President Donald Trump needs to take down Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump throughout his second impeachment and has been a critic of elements of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow to run in opposition to Cassidy and most different challengers dropped out.
There’s only one downside: John Fleming.
The Louisiana state treasurer, who is essentially self-funding his marketing campaign, has remained a cussed pressure in the race, complicating Trump’s revenge plot and making it a near-certainty that Saturday’s primary will head to a June runoff. In doing so, Fleming is testing Trump’s political operation and the energy the second-term president has over the Republican base.
“What people expect from an endorsement from President Trump is really a candidate like me, but what they got was a candidate very similar to Cassidy,” Fleming mentioned in an interview.
Letlow’s marketing campaign has spent the remaining weeks of the primary attacking him greater than the incumbent, at the same time as Cassidy pummels her on the airwaves. A brilliant PAC supporting her has spent about 10 occasions more cash concentrating on Fleming in its promoting in comparison with Cassidy, in keeping with AdImpact.
“Louisiana Republicans know Julia Letlow is President Trump’s choice in this race, while Fleming is a desperate career politician trying to lie his way into another office,” mentioned Katherine Thordahl, a spokeswoman for Letlow’s marketing campaign, in a assertion.
Cassidy seems delighted. After Fleming and Letlow participated in a debate final week that he skipped, Cassidy’s marketing campaign issued a assertion selling the escalating “cage match” between his two challengers, full with pictures of popcorn.
The Senate seat in deep-red Louisiana is anticipated to remain in Republican arms in November no matter who the social gathering nominates. But Saturday’s primary is a gauge of Trump’s sway over the GOP at a essential time, coming three days earlier than a higher-profile test of his revenge in Kentucky in opposition to Rep. Thomas Massie.
There is little impartial polling in Louisiana’s primary and no clear front-runner regardless of the president’s involvement.
Cassidy has largely ignored Fleming and skilled his assaults on Letlow, saying he sees the race as hers to lose. A Cassidy adviser, Mark Harris, instructed reporters Monday that Fleming was “putting on a hard charge” in the remaining days of the primary however that the Cassidy marketing campaign would stay targeted on Letlow.
Claims of job presents and endorsements withdrawn
Fleming first received a House seat in 2008 and served till 2017, a tenure throughout which he helped begin the far-right House Freedom Caucus. Fleming waged an unsuccessful Senate bid in 2016 after which went to work in the first Trump administration, in the end working in the White House as assistant to the president for planning and implementation. He was elected Louisiana state treasurer in 2023.
Fleming introduced in December 2024 that he would run in opposition to Cassidy, citing the senator’s vote to convict Trump over the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
Cassidy was considered one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump, however considered one of solely three left in the chamber, together with Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Among them, Cassidy represents the most pro-Trump state. The president carried Louisiana by 22 proportion factors in 2024, his widest margin there by means of three campaigns.
Cassidy issued a transient assertion on his vote at the time, saying: “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.”
A doctor who has advocated for vaccines, Cassidy has had new rigidity with the White House as the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. While he voted to substantiate Trump’s nominee for well being secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cassidy has criticized a few of Kennedy’s selections at his company and helped sink Trump’s latest nominee for surgeon common, Dr. Casey Means.
Cassidy dinged the administration once more on Tuesday after Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary introduced his resignation. Cassidy said on X that Makary was “part of a broader symptom of an administration that has not paid attention to pro-life issues.”
Fleming instructed NCS he resisted three entreaties from the White House to droop his marketing campaign earlier than the February 13 submitting deadline. The White House provided “some accommodation to me, maybe a job,” Fleming mentioned, including that he fielded one other attraction to drop out inside the seven-day interval after the deadline when candidates might nonetheless again out.
He mentioned he additionally obtained a name round that point from Ralph Abraham, a fellow Louisiana Republican who was about to depart his submit at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and wished to know if Fleming wish to succeed him. Days after Abraham left the CDC, he was named chair of Letlow’s marketing campaign.
The White House didn’t reply to a request for remark. Abraham couldn’t be reached for remark however denied Fleming’s claim when the candidate first made it in March.
Fleming’s continued presence in the race has worn on some individuals near Trump. One of them, adviser Alex Bruesewitz, mentioned final Thursday on social media that Fleming ought to “do the right thing” and drop out and endorse Letlow. The similar day, Letlow’s marketing campaign began calling on Fleming to resign from a firm for which he beforehand lobbied.
Fleming mentioned his place as an adviser with the McKeon Group, for which he says he earns about $1,000 a month, is correct.
He can rely on supporters like Ruth Pope-Johnston, a longtime GOP activist who volunteers for his marketing campaign. She comes from the small city the place he began his first medical clinic, lengthy earlier than he ran for workplace.
“John Fleming has my vote and has had my vote from Day 1 and I’ve never wavered from that,” she mentioned. Not solely that, she added, Fleming “has my undying respect.”
Trump, who initially held again criticism of Cassidy in endorsing Letlow, unloaded on Cassidy after Means’ nomination for surgeon common failed, calling him a “very disloyal person” and accusing him of “intransigence and political games.”
On the marketing campaign path and in media appearances, Cassidy has sought to reframe Saturday’s primary as about “the present and future,” touting that Trump has signed into regulation 4 payments in which he had a main position.
“I don’t really think President Trump likes me that much, but we work really well together,” Cassidy instructed reporters final week, recalling a latest dialog with a voter at Home Depot who requested about his relationship with the president.
In backing Letlow, Trump positioned his guess on extra of a political newcomer than her opponents. Letlow was working in greater training when her husband, Rep. Luke Letlow, died of Covid-19 in 2020 and he or she received a particular election to fill his seat.
Letlow and Fleming have mentioned they might not have voted to convict Trump after January 6. Letlow mentioned throughout her latest debate with Fleming that it was the “worst mistake that Cassidy could have made” and Louisiana voters “have never forgotten it.”
But Trump’s endorsement of Letlow has put the president at odds with Senate GOP leaders, who’re backing Cassidy, as is commonplace apply for incumbents. Senate Majority Leader John Thune headlined a fundraiser for Cassidy in Baton Rouge in January, days earlier than Trump backed Letlow. But nationwide Republicans have in any other case not been deeply concerned in the primary, assured Cassidy has sufficient cash on his personal and that the seat will stay in Republican arms irrespective of who comes out of the primary.
Cassidy and his allies have bombarded Letlow with adverts that target an unearthed 2020 video from when she was making use of to steer the University of Louisiana at Monroe. In the video, Letlow speaks positively about range, fairness and inclusion initiatives that are actually deeply unpopular with Republicans.
At final week’s debate with Fleming, Letlow mentioned she “saw firsthand how the left completely hijacked” DEI and emphasised her votes in opposition to it as soon as she obtained to Congress.
Fleming and Letlow shuttle
Fleming has sought to forged doubt on the genuineness of Trump’s endorsement of Letlow. He claims Letlow allies, together with Gov. Jeff Landry, blocked him from making his case to Trump — and when he lastly obtained by means of to Trump, the president was impressed with him however had already backed Letlow. Letlow, throughout final week’s debate, mentioned Fleming should not have been that acquainted to Trump if it took that lengthy to achieve him.
“I don’t think Fleming’s a bad guy. I think he’s a good conservative,” mentioned Ray Griffin, a longtime member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee who says he helps Letlow. But Fleming’s push to look near Trump, Griffin added, “really irks me.”
Fleming sought final week to win an endorsement from the Louisiana GOP, submitting what he mentioned had been the required variety of signatures from the Republican State Central Committee to pressure a vote. But, in keeping with his marketing campaign, he was instructed he was one signature brief for a number of causes, together with that 4 members had rescinded their endorsements. Fleming blamed Landry’s affect in social media posts.
Louisiana GOP Chairman Derek Babcock confirmed to NCS that Fleming got here up brief due in half to rescinded endorsements.
One of Fleming’s most frequent jabs at Letlow includes carbon seize and sequestration, the emission-storage know-how that has confirmed controversial in rural Louisiana. Fleming has pitched himself as the strongest opponent of the tasks, whereas claiming Letlow’s fiancé advocates for them in his job. Letlow known as that a “low blow” throughout their debate.
Landry’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark. But the governor has criticized Fleming on his social media, accusing him of flip-flopping on carbon seize tasks and questioning whether or not he will be trusted on different points, together with assist for Trump.
Fleming stands by one remark that’s been the topic of Letlow marketing campaign assaults.
A Letlow advert says Fleming has known as Trump “reprehensible,” a reference to a 2016 tweet the place Fleming used that phrase to explain Trump’s lewd feedback in the leaked “Access Hollywood” recording.
“I don’t care who says it, that is a reprehensible comment,” Fleming instructed NCS lately. He later added, “But that doesn’t change my support for President Trump. I support him as a person; I support him as a president.”