BATON ROUGE, La. — For Sen. Bill Cassidy, it’s time to face the music. And for President Donald Trump, it’s another moment of truth.
On Saturday, Louisiana Republicans head to the polls to answer a question the rest of the party is watching closely: Can Trump’s endorsement take out an entrenched incumbent who defied him — and is there still a constituency, even in a state he won by 22 points, for a Republican who believes crossing a president is sometimes the job?
The results will reverberate well beyond Louisiana.
Trump is currently in the middle of a monthlong revenge tour against fellow Republicans he sees as being insufficiently loyal. Last week, he successfully ousted five Indiana state senators who blocked his push to redistrict the state and pad the GOP’s House majority. Next week, he has sights set on Kentucky, where Rep. Thomas Massie — whose steadfast libertarian-tinged views have led him to repeatedly split with Trump on a variety of issues — is fighting for his political life against a primary challenger.
But Louisiana, with a senate seat at play, is perhaps the biggest prize — a chance to eliminate one of few remaining Hill Republicans who supported his impeachment and has laid down speed bumps in confirming administration officials over the last year-and-a-half.
The Trump-Cassidy feud began in 2021, when the Louisiana lawmaker voted to convict Trump following his impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, one of just seven GOP senators to do so. “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person,” Cassidy said in a statement at the time, adding that Trump was “guilty.”
It heated up again in 2025, after Trump returned to the White House. Cassidy — a doctor by training — pressed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, over his dismissal of vaccine science. Cassidy ultimately voted to confirm Kennedy, but not before saying he was “struggling” with the nomination. He has since criticized several of Kennedy’s vaccine policy decisions, drawing the ire of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
The feud boiled over last month, when Trump blamed Cassidy for the stalled nomination of Casey Means, his pick for surgeon general. Means faced skepticism from multiple senators over the fact that she did not hold a medical license; after it became clear she couldn’t win confirmation, Trump withdrew her name.
With Cassidy up for reelection, Trump isn’t mincing words.
In a pair of Truth Social posts, he called Cassidy “a very disloyal person,” accused him of playing “political games,” and urged Louisiana Republicans to vote him “OUT OF OFFICE.”
Hours after the attack, Cassidy brushed it off. “I am loyal to the United States of America, and I’m gonna do my darnedest and work with the president whenever we’re working for the best in the United States of America,” he told reporters in the Capitol when asked about the Truth Social posts.
Would Trump knock him out of the race? “I don’t think so.”
“The people of Louisiana are gonna vote for someone who’s delivered for Louisiana,” Cassidy added. “And I can look at the things that I have delivered for the state of Louisiana… It is far more than any of my opponents.”
The numbers, however, suggest far less reason for confidence.
A poll conducted last month by Emerson College and KLFY News 10 found that 28% of likely GOP primary voters were backing state Treasurer John Fleming, 27% were supporting Rep. Julia Letlow and 21% were behind Cassidy. A whopping 22% were still undecided.
Both Letlow and Fleming have strong ties to Trump and support from the MAGA base.
Letlow was essentially a political newcomer whom Trump hand-picked to mount a bid against Cassidy. In January, the president encouraged the second-term congresswoman to jump into the race. Days later, she launched her candidacy.
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Fleming, a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and MAGA loyalist, served as deputy chief of staff in Trump’s first administration.
If none of the three candidates reach 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff, an outcome that is widely expected amid the tight race.
In the lead-up to primary day, campaigning has had a singular focus: Trump, who has carried the state three times by double digits.
At a primary debate last week, all three candidates found them orbiting the same gravitational pull.
Letlow touted her endorsement from Trump, using it as proof of her conservative bona fides and general credibility.
“My record speaks for itself — it is strong conservative the to the core,” Letlow said. “President Trump would never endorse someone who is not a vetted strong conservative Republican. I’m proud to have his endorsement.”
Fleming, meanwhile, staked his candidacy not on Trump’s endorsement, but on something more visceral: his loyalty to Trump, even after the Jan. 6 attack.
“I served in the Trump administration for four years. I was Trump’s deputy chief of staff for the last 10 months of his administration, his first one. And also, I was there January 6,” Fleming said. “And you know what? There were a lot of resignations in that White House on January 6. I stood there, stayed there, and did not leave my post in the White House. I was there to the very end.”
It was a remarkable moment: a candidate running to the right of Trump’s own endorsed pick by invoking his loyalty during the Capitol attack — the same attack that triggered Cassidy’s conviction vote and set this whole chain of events in motion.
Even Cassidy has played the Trump card — however reluctantly — noting that while the president may dislike him personally, Trump has signed several of his bills into law.
“President Trump may not like me,” he said during an interview on Louisiana First News last week. “But we work really well together.”
Whether Louisiana Republicans believe that is enough is one question Saturday’s results will answer — and one the rest of the Republican Party will be watching closely.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.