❓What happened last night: The Mardi Gras Lady sings for Bill Cassidy – Decision Desk HQ | Substack
Yesterday, Louisiana held its party primaries for U.S. Senate and a handful of other offices. In the GOP primary for Senate, Sen. Bill Cassidy garnered only about 25%, finishing third behind Rep. Julia Letlow (45%) and state Treasurer John Fleming (28%). No candidate won a majority, so Letlow and Fleming will meet in a runoff on June 27. This result was not a surprise: President Donald Trump had endorsed Letlow in her challenge to Cassidy, who drew Trump’s wrath for having supported impeachment after the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Looking over the map, Letlow carried most parishes in the state, running up especially high margins in northeastern Louisiana, home to her 5th Congressional District. Fleming did best in his old 4th Congressional District in the northwest (current House Speaker Mike Johnson succeeded Fleming after he mounted a failed 2016 Senate bid). As for Cassidy, he only performed decently in Greater New Orleans. The incumbent edged Letlow 43%-37% in the New Orleans-Metairie metro, but Letlow carried every other metro in the state. Cassidy previously represented areas around Baton Rouge in the U.S. House, but he only won East Baton Rouge Parish in that part of the state. Across the entire Baton Rouge metro, Letlow beat Cassidy 41%-28%.
Cassidy’s third-place outcome in the primary will keep him out of the runoff, a result that adds Cassidy to an ignominious and long-dormant historical list: He is the first incumbent senator to finish worse than second in a primary since Sen. Hattie Caraway finished fourth in Arkansas’s 1944 Democratic nomination contest.
Heading into the runoff, Letlow is the clear favorite considering she finished fairly close to 50% and, of course, because she has Trump’s endorsement. Letlow also led Fleming in most runoff polling ahead of the primary. Although Fleming can significantly self-fund his campaign — he’d loaned his campaign $10.7 million as of April 26 — Letlow will almost certainly enjoy more outside support from groups like the Accountability Project super PAC.
Cassidy’s defeat is also one of the worst experienced by Republicans who supported Trump’s second impeachment. With Louisiana’s vote totals still unofficial, Cassidy sits at 24.8% in yesterday’s primary. That puts him only a hair ahead of South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice, who only garnered 24.6% in his primary defeat in 2022 after voting to impeach Trump. It also puts Cassidy behind the 28.9% garnered by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who was the most high-profile pro-impeachment Republican to lose a primary to a Trump-endorsed opponent in 2022.
Cassidy might have fared better had Louisiana continued using its “jungle primary.” That system, in which all candidates regardless of party run together on the November ballot (with a majority threshold to win outright), would have allowed Democrats and less partisan general election voters to possibly vote for him. Tellingly, of the incumbent Republicans who backed impeachment, only those who ran in analogous all-party systems — like top-two or top-four primaries — have returned to Congress.
Instead, Louisiana altered its primary rules so that federal elections would use partisan primaries. This shift likely doomed Cassidy. But Cassidy may feel especially sore because, due to Louisiana’s impending redistricting, the state moved its U.S. House primaries back to the jungle primary format just for 2026. Yet the state kept the partisan primary in place for the U.S. Senate race, meaning only registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters could cast ballots.
With Cassidy’s defeat, only three of the 17 Republicans in the Senate or House who supported Trump’s second impeachment could still be in office after the 2026 election. And of those, only Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is certain to remain because she isn’t on the ballot in 2026. The other two, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and California Rep. David Valadao, face tough reelection bids this year.
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I abhor any Republican who voted for the bogus Dem Party impeachments of Trump.
Could Cassidy run as an Independent in the general election? Surely Democrats would vote for him since they have no credible candidate of their own?
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