Baton Rouge, May 17 (AP) US Rep Julia Letlow advanced to a runoff in Louisiana's Republican Senate primary Saturday, capitalising on the power of President Donald Trump's endorsement in another attempt to purge his party of people he views as disloyal.
Trump supported Letlow over incumbent Sen Bill Cassidy, one of the few Republican senators who voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial over the attack on the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021. Cassidy, a doctor, has also clashed with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, even though he provided crucial support to help Kennedy get confirmed.
Letlow was also running against state Treasurer John Fleming, a former US House member and Trump administration official.
By receiving less than 50 per cent of the vote, Letlow was unable to avoid a runoff. The second round is scheduled for June 27.
The Louisiana primary comes in the middle of a month of campaigns by Trump to exact retribution on politicians who have crossed him. On May 5, he helped dislodge five of seven Indiana state senators who rejected his redistricting plan.
Next Tuesday, US Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky will face a Trump-backed challenger, Ed Gallrein, in another Republican primary. Massie angered Trump by opposing his signature tax legislation over concerns about the national debt, pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files and opposing his decision to go to war with Iran.
The president unloaded on Cassidy on Saturday morning, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media. Trump criticised the senator's impeachment vote and said “he's going to get CLOBBERED,” adding that Letlow is “a winner who will NEVER let you down.”
Jeanelle Chachere, a 66-year-old nurse, said she considers Cassidy “a phoney” and she voted for Letlow solely because Trump endorsed her.
“I'm going by what he says, because I like what he does,” she said.
A third candidate is State Treasurer John Fleming. If no one gets at least 50 per cent of the vote, a runoff will be held on June 27. The GOP primary winner will almost certainly take the November general election because of the state's Republican leanings.
Election changes stir concern
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The election was scrambled by a recent US Supreme Court decision gutting a part of the Voting Rights Act that affects how congressional maps are drawn. Although the Senate primary is moving forward, Louisiana leaders decided to delay House primaries until a future date to allow them to redo district lines ahead of time, a shift that threatened to cause confusion for voters on Saturday.
Mary-Patricia Wray, who has consulted for Republican and Democratic candidates in Louisiana, said the change could weigh against Cassidy by dampening turnout among voters who are less fervently pro-Trump.
“Suspending the congressional primaries hurts Cassidy,” she said. “Some people believe the Senate primary is cancelled.”
Cassidy also complained that a new primary system enacted last year confused voters by requiring them to ask for a partisan ballot instead of the all-party primary previously in place. He said some called his office to say they had been unable to vote for him.
“The process that was set up was destined to be confusing,” Cassidy told reporters Friday.
Dadrius Lanus, executive director of the state Democratic Party, said his team fielded hundreds of calls from voters statewide who said the changes undermined their ability to vote as they planned.
“A lot of the information should have gotten to voters well in advance,” Lanus said. “It's literally been a whirlwind of confusion.”
A senator tries to hang on
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Cassidy has waged an aggressive campaign to convince voters he should not be counted out.
“Four months ago, I would have told you it's impossible for Cassidy to win this,” said Wray, the political consultant. “I still think it's statistically unlikely, but no longer impossible.”
Paul Begue, a 41-year-old in New Orleans who works in the agriculture industry, said he planned to vote for Cassidy. He was bothered by a video of Trump saying Letlow was “as loyal as can be.” For Begue, that was “the final nail in the coffin.”
“I don't care about her loyalty to President Trump,” he said, adding, “I like elected officials that seem to make their own decisions.”
The senator's campaign is expected to have spent roughly USD 9.6 million on advertising through May 16, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And Louisiana Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting him, is on track to spend USD 12.3 million.
By comparison, Letlow's campaign, which launched Jan 20, has spent roughly USD 3.9 million, while a super PAC backing her, the Accountability Project, has spent about USD 6 million since then.
Fleming's campaign has spent about USD 1.5 million.
Cassidy and the Louisiana Freedom Fund ran ads attacking Letlow within days of her entering the race for supporting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which Trump has tried to root out of the federal government.
Letlow, a college administrator before her election to the House, said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020.
The ads, an attempt to characterise Letlow as a progressive trying to pass as a conservative, are one way Cassidy is trying to flip the script in a race where he's on the outs with Trump.
The president targets Cassidy
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The senator's vote in favour of convicting Trump after his 2021 impeachment over the Jan 6 Capitol siege has shadowed Cassidy throughout his second Senate term.
John Martin, a 68-year-old retired engineer in south Louisiana, said he would vote for Letlow because he was still upset by Cassidy's decision. He waved a flyer from Letlow's campaign showing her standing alongside the president.
“I know a lot more about Cassidy than I do about her,” Martin said. “But if she's endorsed by Trump, I'm going to believe that.”
Cassidy steered clear of Trump's ire last year, supporting Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services despite his public reservations about the nominee's anti-vaccine views.
Mark Workman, a 75-year-old retired infectious disease physician in the New Orleans suburbs, said he backs Fleming. Had Cassidy “stood up and blocked RFK,” Workman said, he would have supported the senator for taking a strong and courageous stance.
“He had the ability to stop him,” Workman said, “and he was too weak to do that.”
As chair of the Senate health committee, Cassidy has been more publicly critical of Kennedy, including over funding cuts for vaccine development.
Trump blamed Cassidy for the failed nomination of his second choice for surgeon general, Casey Means, who raised doubts about vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B, a practice Cassidy supports.
Trump withdrew the Means nomination and blasted Cassidy.
“Hopefully all of the Great Republican People of Louisiana, which I won, BIG, three times, will be voting Bill Cassidy OUT OF OFFICE in the upcoming Republican Primary!” Trump posted on social media.
Letlow had an unconventional and tragic entry into politics.
In 2020, while she was a college administrator, her husband Luke was elected to the U.S. House but died of COVID-19 before he could be sworn in. Letlow ran for and won the seat in a March 2021 special election and was reelected in 2022 and 2024. (AP) MPL
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