Republican Senator Cassidy loses re-election bid as two others advance to runoff

Two-term Republican U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy lost his bid for re-election in Louisiana's primary on Saturday, as Trump-backed challenger Julia Letlow and John Fleming advanced to a June runoff to choose the party's nominee after a closely fought three-way battle, according to U.S. media.

Cassidy, a physician who first earned the president's ire by voting for his conviction in Trump's second Senate impeachment trial in 2021, was projected to finish in third place in a political victory for Trump's retribution campaign that recently unseated several Republican senators in Indiana who defied his push for state congressional re-districting.

He is the first elected U.S. senator to lose re-nomination since 2012.

Letlow, who won Trump's Senate endorsement before she had even announced her candidacy, led Fleming 44.8% to 28.4% with 92% of votes counted, the Associated Press reported. The two candidates will now face each other in a June 27 run-off election to determine which candidate will confront Democrat Jamie Davis, who was projected to win his party's nomination, in the November general election.

The winner of the runoff is likely to fill the seat, according to independent analysts who rate it as solidly Republican.

(Reporting by David Morgan. Additional reporting by Christian Martinez, Marcelo Teixeira, David Hood-Nuño and Blake Brittain. Editing by Michael Learmonth, Alistair Bell, Mark Potter and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published May 16, 2026 at 8:03 PM.