Bill Cassidy’s defeat likely ends his career in politics | Local Politics

In retrospect, US Sen. Bill Cassidy sealed his defeat for reelection on Feb. 13, 2021.

That’s the day he voted to convict then-former President Donald Trump on impeachment costs that Trump incited the assault by his supporters on the Capitol 5 weeks earlier – simply after Cassidy had gained reelection with Trump’s endorsement.

Trump felt deceived, bought US Rep. Julia Letlow to leap into the Senate race in January this 12 months with his endorsement and precise retribution Saturday evening when Cassidy finished third in the Republican Senate primary.

Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming completed first and second and advance to the June 27 runoff. Cassidy’s reelection marketing campaign is finished. He will serve out the ultimate six months of his Senate time period.

“Cassidy’s political career is over,” Ed Chervenak, a political scientist on the University of New Orleans, stated on Sunday.

Still, as Democratic political strategist James Carville famous, “Two terms in the Senate is nothing to sneeze at.”

Breaking down the loss

In his closing race, Cassidy needed to run in a closed Republican major created by Gov. Jeff Landry that appeared designed to hamstring Cassidy. Under the brand new guidelines, registered Democrats who had historically voted for Republicans couldn’t vote for him except they modified their social gathering registration to no-party or Republican.

Throughout the marketing campaign, Cassidy touted his means to work with Trump conservatives, saying that the president had signed 4 items of his laws into legislation and noting that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wouldn’t have been confirmed as well being secretary with out his assist. At the identical time, Cassidy appealed to moderates by saying he knew find out how to work with Democrats to ship cash for Louisiana. But many reasonable Republicans and Democrats noticed the vote to verify Kennedy as a sell-out to Trump since Cassidy is so at odds with Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines.

In making an attempt to string the needle between the 2 camps of voters, Cassidy fell quick, profitable solely 24.8% of the vote, in comparison with 44.8% for Letlow and 28.2% for Fleming. Mark Spencer, who referred to as himself a “Guns and Bible conservative,” gained 2% of the vote.

Conservatives did not suppose he was conservative sufficient.

“Cassidy betrayed Trump,” stated a voter named Judy on Saturday outdoors a polling station at a New Orleans fireplace home. “I voted for Letlow.”

Cassidy overtly appealed to Democrats to change their registration. But solely 7,488 Democrats did so after Feb. 1. That was 1.8% of the 401,118 individuals who voted in the Republican major.

“Bill obviously got caught in a vise trying to appeal to Trump voters when it was pretty apparent that he was not supported by Trump and trying to appeal to more moderate voters who were upset by his vote for Kennedy. That created the scenario that played out yesterday, that he didn’t make the cut,” stated Jay Dardenne, who preceded Cassidy in the state Senate.

Cassidy did not reply to an interview request.

John Couvillon, a Baton Rouge pollster who carried out surveys for Fleming, stated Cassidy carried out properly in reasonable Republican parishes: East Baton Rouge, Jefferson and Orleans.

But Letlow smoked him on the Interstate 12 hall and in the parishes alongside Interstate 10 west of Baton Rouge.

“The more the Republican the region, the worse-off Cassidy did,” Chervenak stated.

20 years in politics, undone by one vote

Cassidy, 68, is a Baton Rouge native who earned undergraduate and medical faculty levels from LSU and have become a liver specialist on the capital metropolis’s charity hospital.

He gained election to the state Senate in 2006 after which climbed the political ladder by profitable three phrases in the US House, then Senate victories in 2014 and 2020.

Throughout his 12 years in the Senate, Cassidy has been referred to as a political wonk who would moderately research find out how to cut back well being care prices than analyze find out how to play the political angles to make sure that he benefited from a giant resolution.

Reflective of that, Cassidy most well-liked to be referred to as “Dr. Cassidy” than “Sen. Cassidy.”

To make sure, he may take the steps wanted to win an election.

He pounded then-Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, in the 2014 election for having voted for President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act 5 years earlier.

But as Couvillon famous, Cassidy obtained his comeuppance this 12 months from Letlow for his 2021 vote to convict Trump.

“It was the one vote that people would not forget in a Republican primary contest,” Couvillon stated.

Immediately after that vote, Cassidy said he had grown angry at how Trump “lied” about claiming he had gained the 2020 election in opposition to Biden. The senator added that the proof confirmed clearly that Trump had incited the assault on the Capitol.

Cassidy instantly confronted blowback in Louisiana because the state Republican Party censured him. But, he advised reporters, he thought that point would heal the political wounds by 2026.

“He had a comfortable six years ahead of him,” Dardenne stated. “It was almost like he decided, ‘I’m going to do what I really believe.’ He didn’t think Trump would win a second term. That was obviously a miscalculation.”

Trying to win his approach again

After Trump returned to the White House in 2025, Cassidy did all the things he may to get again into the president’s good graces, to have a great working relationship with the White House and to get issues completed for Louisiana, based on individuals near him.

Cassidy tried to persuade voters in Louisiana that he was succeeding.

Cassidy’s Senate workplace even despatched out press releases when he merely appeared at occasions with Trump.

By the start of 2026, nevertheless, personal polls confirmed that many extra voters considered him negatively than positively. That’s sometimes a dying knell in political races.

A key date that got here and went was Jan. 14. That was the deadline for Cassidy to register as a political unbiased, which might have enabled him to bypass the social gathering primaries and run in the November basic election in opposition to the Republican and Democratic candidates.

Trump endorsed Letlow on Jan. 17. Cassidy was caught working as a Republican.

“That was not coincidental timing,” Dardenne stated, noting that Cassidy stated on the time that he thought Trump would keep away from his race.

As the qualifying interval approached in February, Cassidy’s probabilities seemed so iffy in political circles that hypothesis abounded that he would forgo his reelection.

“Unless you’re God’s perfect idiot, the result was predictable,” US Sen. John Kennedy stated on Sunday. “Everybody knew a year ago that Bill was in trouble. The president endorsing Congresswoman Letlow was the icing on the cake. I respect him for running anyway.”

On election evening at Boudreaux’s Catering in Baton Rouge, the hordes of people that had been with Cassidy on his triumphal nights in 2014 and 2020 had been gone.

Only 4 elected officers had been noticed: Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie; Rep. Foy Gadberry, R-West Monroe; Laura Ventrella, R-Greenwell Springs; and Randy Delatte, Livingston Parish’s president.

Food on a buffet desk was largely uneaten.

A bartender providing glasses of celebratory champagne from “Team Cassidy” was requested if she had many takers.

“Only a few,” she stated. “Only a few.”