Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) and state Treasurer John Fleming (R) are challenging Cassidy in Saturday’s Louisiana primary. Recent polling from Quantus Insights projects Cassidy finishing third behind Letlow and Fleming.
No candidates are currently projected to garner more than 50 percent of the vote. If Cassidy lands in third, he’ll be left off the runoff primary ballot in June.
Being one of six Republicans senators who voted to impeach Trump in 2021, Cassidy was already on the bad terms with the president. His reluctance to give his full-throated support to Trump’s top health officials like Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has only served to worsen relations with the White House.
“Trump’s definitely on the ballot. There’s no doubt about it. And it’s having an effect on every candidate,” said Pearson Cross, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana.
“[Of] course, it’s having a bad effect, potentially, on Cassidy, a good effect on Letlow, and it’s unclear with Fleming,” Cross said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of the other GOP senators who voted to impeach Trump, managed to beat a Trump-endorsed primary challenger in her state back in 2022, but the field has changed since then, and Louisiana’s system now differs from Alaska’s open primaries.
It’s notably the first race for Cassidy since the state switched from a more open primary setup to a closed-party primary system, under which voters registered with a party can vote only for that party’s candidates. “No party” voters, who make up nearly 30 percent of registered voters in the state, must choose a party in order to participate.
That could be problematic for Cassidy, as he will not be able to rely on Democrats crossing the aisle to support his bid.
Read more from The Hill’s Julie Mueller.
