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Trump-Backed Julia Letlow Advances as Sen. Bill Cassidy Loses Louisiana GOP Primary

Trump-Backed Julia Letlow Advances as Sen. Bill Cassidy Loses Louisiana GOP Primary
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Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was ousted from his seat Saturday after finishing a distant third in the state’s Republican Senate primary, as Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a June 27 runoff with roughly 45% and 28% of the vote, respectively, to Cassidy’s 25% with nearly all ballots counted axios +1. The result delivered a rare primary defeat for a sitting U.S. senator and a clear victory for former President Donald Trump’s campaign to punish Republicans who crossed him after January 6 politico +1.

Cassidy, a two-term incumbent first elected in 2014, had long been a target for Trump and his allies after he voted to convict the then-president at his second impeachment trial in 2021 politico. In the first Senate race held under Louisiana’s new semi-closed party primary system, Republican voters chose between four GOP contenders; Cassidy failed to secure one of the top two spots needed to move on, despite strong name recognition and a sizable war chest theguardian +1.

How Trump’s “revenge tour” toppled an incumbent senator

Trump endorsed Letlow in January, cut a TV ad on her behalf and repeatedly reminded GOP voters that Cassidy had “voted to impeach” him, casting the senator as disloyal and out of step with the party’s base politico +1. A pro-Letlow outside group spent roughly $1 million boosting her candidacy, while Fleming poured about $10.6 million of his own money into the race, ensuring that attacks on Cassidy’s record dominated the airwaves npr +1. After networks projected his defeat, Trump celebrated on social media, writing that Cassidy’s “political career is OVER!” in a post widely shared by conservative activists nbcnews.

Cassidy leaned into his record as a pragmatic conservative and defended his impeachment vote as an act of conscience, telling supporters on election night that in democracy, “you don’t pout, you don’t whine, you don’t claim the election was stolen” when you lose theguardian. But parish-level results showed Letlow and Fleming splitting the pro-Trump vote across much of the state, while Cassidy’s strength was largely confined to the Baton Rouge area, not enough to offset his weakness among hard-line Republicans axios.

What the loss means for Louisiana and the 2026 Senate map

The June runoff between Letlow and Fleming will effectively decide Louisiana’s next senator in a state that nonpartisan analysts rate as “Solid Republican” for November, with Democrats considered heavy underdogs regardless of the GOP nominee thehill +1. Letlow, a sitting House member who has campaigned on border security and unwavering support for Trump’s agenda, enters the runoff as the front-runner after nearly clearing 50% in the primary; Fleming is pitching himself as the “true conservative” who was “MAGA before MAGA was cool,” hoping to consolidate anti-establishment voters skeptical of Letlow’s ties to party leadership theguardian +1.

Nationally, Cassidy’s defeat underscored Trump’s continuing power over Republican primaries in 2026, following a string of successful interventions in state legislative contests earlier this month npr +1. Still, because Louisiana was already a safe GOP seat, the outcome did little to alter the broader math: Republicans entered the cycle with a 53–47 Senate majority, and control of the chamber will turn on more competitive races in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona rather than Louisiana thehill +1.

The Bigger Picture

Cassidy became the first previously elected GOP senator since Indiana’s Richard Lugar in 2012 to lose a primary, reinforcing a message to Republican incumbents that crossing Trump can still be politically fatal politico +1. For Louisiana, the contest now shifts from whether the state will send a Republican to the Senate to which version of Trump-era conservatism — embodied by Letlow or Fleming — GOP voters prefer to represent them in Washington.

axios Decision Desk HQ
theguardian NBC News
politico CNN
npr Politico
thehill The Hill
nbcnews The Hill / Trump social media post
cnn Politico campaign finance reporting
thehill Ballotpedia / Cook Political Report via New York Times
washingtonpost Indiana Capital Chronicle / The Hill on prior Trump-backed wins
newsnationnow UVA Center for Politics / Sabato’s Crystal Ball
pbs NPR on Lugar’s 2012 defeat