A little over a month ago, President Trump’s ire and the disgust of the voting public claimed another recalcitrant, whiny RINO scalp.
Incumbent United States Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was first challenged and then summarily trounced in the state’s GOP primary by Louisiana Congresswoman Julia Letlow, who was endorsed by the president.
Shoot – the sitting US senator, who has been in office since 2015, couldn’t even manage to make it to the runoff. That’s how badly Louisiana voters wanted him gone.
The best Cassidy could manage was a third-place finish, winding up four points behind the state’s current treasurer, John Fleming, claiming the Number Two spot.
Politico called the vanquishing another victory on Trump’s ‘revenge tour.’
Heh
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) just lost his seat — a key victory for President Donald Trump’s revenge tour this cycle.
Rep. Julia Letlow, the Trump-backed candidate, and state Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a runoff in the Louisiana GOP Senate primary on Saturday, with Cassidy finishing in third place.
It’s a remarkable result: Cassidy is the first previously elected senator of either party to lose in a primary since 2012. The two-term senator and chair of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee failed to even make the runoff, finishing with roughly a quarter of the vote.
Letlow was elected to Congress in 2021 in a special election to fill the seat left empty when her husband tragically died of COVID shortly before being able to take the oath of office for it himself. She does have the distinction of being the first Republican woman from Louisiana ever elected to Congress.
She won her reelection in 2024 with an overwhelming 62.4% of the vote in 2024.
Trump reiterated his original endorsement of Letlow for voters going to the polls today.
President Trump made a final appeal to Louisiana Republicans on Friday to support Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) in Saturday’s Senate runoff election, calling the lawmaker a “Great Star” and a “TOTAL WINNER” in one of this year’s most closely watched GOP primaries.
Letlow faces off against state Treasurer John Fleming (R) in a two-way race after incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who has emerged a Trump critic, failed to advance to the runoff after finishing third in the May primary.
The president praised Letlow as a “Highly Respected America First Congresswoman” in a post on Truth Social.
“I know Julia well, have seen her tested at the highest and most difficult levels,” he wrote, adding that she has “always delivered for Louisiana” and that she would fight to grow the state’s economy, cut taxes, support its energy industry and ensure law and order.
Trump added, “She has my Complete and Total Endorsement, and will never let you down!”
For his part, John Fleming is looking to his well-established record and popularity in the state, as well as his own solid Trumpian credentials, to carry him through. He thinks he might just have an edge in a grassroots dogfight.
John Fleming is trying to prove he’s MAGA enough to win a Senate seat over a Trump-endorsed opponent.
Fleming, Louisiana’s state treasurer and a former Trump administration official and congressman, is locked in a vicious runoff with Rep. Julia Letlow, who boasts powerful twin endorsements from the president and Gov. Jeff Landry. She’s widely considered the frontrunner, but Fleming has been gaining momentum in the final weeks ahead of Saturday’s contest. After a strong second-place finish for Fleming in the first round of voting helped end Trump-skeptical Sen. Bill Cassidy’s career, recent public polling shows he’s got a shot at winning the whole thing.
“Anybody who looked at us on paper would say, well, I’m the obvious MAGA Republican Trump choice,” Fleming said in an interview. He’s betting that Republicans, relieved to have ousted Cassidy over his sins against MAGA, will now be asking a different question in this round: who is the most conservative candidate?
“They’ve spent the last month looking at us and comparing us, and what they find is, if you want a Trump-like candidate, if you want somebody who’s very conservative, somebody who is much more consistent with MAGA policies, then Fleming is the person,” he said, referring to himself .
Fleming has closely yoked himself to the president and his agenda in spite of Trump’s endorsement for Letlow. A campaign slogan states Fleming was “MAGA before MAGA was cool,” and the campaign put up billboards of him pictured standing beside Trump throughout high-traffic areas like I-89 in Baton Rouge before Letlow got into the race.
Jamie Davis and Gary Crockett are the two Democrats dukin’ it out on that side…but who cares?!
It’s shaping up to be a MEGA MAGA MATCH in the Bayou State Tonight.
Polls close at 8, local time (and that’s Central, so 9 pm on the East Coast)
We’ll have the wickets for watching up and ready to run the minute the returns start coming in.
WHOOOOO BOY!!!!
Should be fun to watch how it shakes out.
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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