Trump-backed Letlow – U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a June 27 Republican Senate runoff after Louisiana’s primary left neither candidate above 50% of the vote. The outcome sets up a contest that hinges heavily on President Donald Trump’s end
Agents on the campaign trail didn’t hide the emotional stakes of Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary, and the results Saturday delivered a clear opening to President Donald Trump’s preferred path: Julia Letlow and John Fleming moved on to a runoff after failing to clear the 50% threshold.
Letlow, a U.S. representative, advanced to the next round along with State Treasurer John Fleming, a former U.S. House member and a Trump administration official. The runoff is set for June 27. With Louisiana’s Republican leanings, the GOP winner is expected to take the November general election.
The setup reflected Trump’s direct involvement in nudging the party away from politicians he considers disloyal.. Trump backed 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 U.S.. Capitol on Jan.. 6, 2021.
Trump’s push against Cassidy has also been tied to sharp disagreements over health policy.. Cassidy has clashed with Health Secretary Robert F.. Kennedy Jr.. over vaccine policy, even after Cassidy provided crucial support to help Kennedy get confirmed.. Cassidy also served as chair of the Senate health committee and was more publicly critical of Kennedy. including over funding cuts for vaccine development.
The president’s strategy has not stayed confined to private politics.. Saturday morning, Trump called Cassidy “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy” on social media.. In the evening. he followed with. “Congratulations to Congresswoman Julia Letlow on a fantastic race. beating an Incumbent Senator by Record Setting Numbers.”
Jeanelle Chachere, a 66-year-old nurse, said she views Cassidy as “a phony” and voted for Letlow solely because Trump endorsed her. “I’m going by what he says, because I like what he does,” she said.
Election turmoil also hung over the day. with the Supreme Court’s decision to gut part of the Voting Rights Act affecting how congressional maps are drawn.. Even though the Senate primary proceeded. Louisiana leaders delayed House primaries until a future date so district lines could be redrawn in advance.. That shift threatened to create confusion for voters on Saturday.
Mary-Patricia Wray. a consultant who has worked with both Republican and Democratic candidates in Louisiana. said suspending the congressional primaries could weaken 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 canceled.”
Cassidy also complained that a new primary system enacted last year confused voters.. He said it required voters to ask for a partisan ballot instead of an all-party primary that was previously in place.. Cassidy said some people 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.
State Democrats described the confusion in concrete terms.. 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.. “A lot of the information should have gotten to voters well in advance,” Lanus said.. “It’s literally been a whirlwind of confusion.”
Money and messaging also reflected a race where Trump’s endorsement was the lever. but the candidates’ dueling strategies were still visible in ad spending and tone.. Cassidy’s campaign was expected to have spent roughly $9.6 million on advertising through May 16, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.. Louisiana Freedom Fund, a super PAC supporting Cassidy, was on track to spend $12.3 million.
Letlow’s campaign spent roughly $3.9 million after launching Jan. 20, while the Accountability Project, the super PAC backing her, spent about $6 million. Fleming’s campaign spent about $1.5 million.
Cassidy and Louisiana Freedom Fund attacked Letlow within days of her entering the race. aiming at her support for diversity. equity and inclusion initiatives—positions Trump has tried to root out of the federal government.. Letlow previously said she supported DEI while interviewing for the position of president of University of Louisiana-Monroe in 2020.. The ads were framed as an effort to portray Letlow as a progressive trying to pass as a conservative. and they were part of Cassidy’s attempt to flip the script in a race where he has been targeted by Trump.
Several voters tied their decisions directly to the president’s posture toward Cassidy. and others tied it to Cassidy’s own health-policy choices.. John Martin. a 68-year-old retired engineer in south Louisiana. said he planned to vote for Letlow because he was still upset by Cassidy’s decision in 2021.. 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.”
Paul Begue. a 41-year-old who works in agriculture in New Orleans. said he planned to vote for Cassidy and 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.. “I like elected officials that seem to make their own decisions.”
Mark Workman. a 75-year-old retired infectious disease physician in the New Orleans suburbs. said he backs Fleming and argued that if Cassidy had “stood up and blocked RFK. ” he would have supported Cassidy for taking a strong and courageous stance.. “He had the ability to stop him,” Workman said, “and he was too weak to do that.”
The fight between Trump and Cassidy has carried personal weight for Cassidy’s supporters as well as his detractors.. The senator steered clear of Trump’s ire last year by supporting Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services despite Kennedy’s public reservations about anti-vaccine views.. Trump later blamed Cassidy for the failed nomination of his second choice for surgeon general. Casey Means. after Means raised doubts about vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B—something Cassidy supports.. Trump withdrew the Means nomination and blasted Cassidy.
Letlow’s entry into the race was itself unusual.. She considered running last year but entered only after Trump announced his endorsement in January.. By that time, Fleming was already in the field as a Trump devotee.. Landry had been looking for a better-known challenger and suggested Letlow to the president.
Letlow’s path to Congress also included a tragic turning point that shaped her political story.. 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.
The timing and the rules change set up a race where presidential involvement, health-policy disagreements, and voter logistics collided.. Trump backed Letlow over Cassidy. while the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling led Louisiana to delay House primaries and Cassidy said the new partisan-ballot primary system confused voters. as both campaigns pushed to define what loyalty and readiness should mean.
As Louisiana now heads toward a June 27 runoff, Letlow and Fleming will carry forward a contest still shaped by Trump’s decision to make Cassidy a target in a broader push against Republican figures he views as insufficiently aligned.
Louisiana Senate primary Julia Letlow John Fleming Bill Cassidy Donald Trump June 27 runoff Voting Rights Act primary system Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vaccine policy DEI