A Republican senator who left his party to vote to convict President Donald Trump during his first term is facing his first painful challenge in his home state of Louisiana.
Thursday’s primary against Bill Cassidy is seen as a barometer of Trump’s continued control over the Republican Party. Although polls show the president’s approval ratings are slipping, early primary voting shows his support remains significant.
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President Trump is supporting Congresswoman Julia Letlow in the Senate race. State Treasurer John Fleming is also running. The winner of the Republican primary is almost certain to win the general election in the deep red state.
Cassidy joined seven Senate Republicans in voting to convict Trump on charges of “incitement of insurrection” following Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election results and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.
“Our Constitution and our country are more important than anyone else, and I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” Cassidy said in a statement at the time.
Despite a small number of Republican defections, the chamber fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump, and he was acquitted.
After leaving office in 2021, Trump, who was initially seen as politically toxic, has made a spectacular comeback in the years since, reshaping the Republican Party in his own image.
That included the ascension of many members of Congress who supported Mr. Trump’s claim that the 2020 vote was stolen, a claim for which Mr. Trump has provided no evidence.
Now, most of the other Republican senators who joined Cassidy in voting to convict Trump have either been ousted or elected to retire.
Of this group, only Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine who continues to be seen as a bulwark against a Democratic challenger in her home state, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is passing up a Trump-backed challenger in 2022, have escaped major internal party disagreements over votes.
Letlow, an academic administrator who took office in 2021, is also in control of Cassidy’s vote in 2021, saying in a campaign launch video that Louisiana residents “shouldn’t have to wonder how their senator will vote when the pressure is on.”
thin line
Cassidy, an internist, walked a fine line during President Trump’s second term, regularly touting the administration’s policy initiatives and appearing with the president multiple times at the White House for health care-focused events and bill signings.
Still, Mr. Cassidy has had some high-profile run-ins with the Trump administration. During Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing to become Secretary of Health and Human Services, Cassidy got into an argument with Kennedy over vaccine skepticism.
“I’m a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine-preventable diseases, and to see thousands of people getting infected again and to see people, especially children, dying again from vaccine-preventable diseases seems more than a tragedy,” he said at the hearing.
Mr. Cassidy then cast the deciding vote to confirm Mr. Kennedy, with assurances that the federal vaccine recommendations would not change. The Department of Health under Kennedy subsequently changed these recommendations.
In April, President Trump accused Cassidy of criticizing Surgeon General candidate Casey Means, who had come under fire for vaccine skepticism and unproven health theories.
President Trump criticized Cassidy’s “unyielding political maneuvering.” In a subsequent post, he said he hopes Republicans will “vote to vacate Bill Cassidy in the upcoming Republican primary.”
Cassidy, on the other hand, argued that his opponent, Letlow, lacked conservative integrity.
He highlighted her past support for diversity initiatives in education (which she has since disavowed) and her past attendance at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Trump’s influence?
Trump won about 58% of the vote in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and led Louisiana with 60% in 2024.
The president’s overall approval rating plummeted in the lead-up to the primary vote, hitting an all-time low of 34% at the end of April. This comes amid widespread dissatisfaction with the US and Israel’s war against Iran and its economic damage.
Although Mr. Trump maintains high support among Republicans, there is a noticeable decline in support among independents.
Polls show Mr. Cassidy running behind Mr. Letlow and Mr. Fleming. If no candidate wins a majority, the race will proceed to a runoff election on June 27.
Thursday’s campaign comes amid a continuing national battle over congressional redistricting.
Louisiana’s U.S. House primary was also scheduled for Thursday, but Gov. Jeff Landry suspended voting.
After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, paving the way for the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature to redraw its congressional maps to eliminate one of its two majority-Black districts.
Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit claiming the suspension violates both the U.S. and state constitutions.
