Republican Rep. Julia Letlow has launched a run for US Senate in Louisiana, profiting from President Donald Trump’s endorsement to launch a primary battle against incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a supply acquainted with the matter stated.
Letlow was elected to the House in a March 2021 particular election to exchange her husband, Luke Letlow, after he died from Covid-19 simply weeks after being elected.
Letlow’s announcement units the stage for a hard-fought and probably costly primary battle for a secure Senate seat, as Republicans search to carry onto their slim congressional majorities on this fall’s midterm elections. Letlow had been ready for Trump to weigh in on the race and had urged that she was solely prepared to run if he particularly backed her, a supply acquainted with the matter stated.
Trump was urged by Senate Majority Leader John Thune to again Cassidy. His push for Letlow is the most recent reminder that he doesn’t forgive or overlook Republicans who break with him on private phrases — even when they largely help his agenda.
Cassidy stated he had spoken with Letlow by cellphone Tuesday morning about her bid.
“She said she respected me and that I had done a good job. I will continue to do a good job when I win re-election. I am a conservative who wakes up every morning thinking about how to make Louisiana and the United States a better place to live,” he stated in a assertion.
The senator was certainly one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial following the January 6, 2021, revolt on the US Capitol. At the time, Cassidy had simply gained a new six-year time period and Trump’s future in politics was unclear after he’d misplaced his bid for reelection.
The Louisiana senator predicted shortly after the vote, which in the end fell brief, that Trump’s affect throughout the GOP would recede. “I think his force wanes. The Republican Party is more than just one person,” he instructed ABC News.
Cassidy, a 68-year-old physician, chairs the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services secretary, regardless of voicing opposition to Kennedy’s skepticism over vaccines. However, Cassidy’s relationship with Kennedy hit a breaking point final 12 months.
Trump’s determination to again a primary challenger against a GOP incumbent creates a new level of rigidity between Senate Republicans and the White House.
Already in latest weeks, Trump has railed against a handful of senators who broke with Trump and backed advancing a measure to rein in his warfare powers in Venezuela. Among these focused by the president was Maine Sen. Susan Collins, whose reelection this 12 months is crucial to the GOP’s hopes of retaining its majority.
And one other Senate Republican from a aggressive state, North Carolina’s Thom Tillis, has opted against in search of reelection amid criticism from Trump.