He wasn’t on the ballot, but President was a winner in Louisiana’s GOP Senate runoff election.
That’s because Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow defeated state Treasurer John Fleming to capture the Republican nomination, The Associated Press reported on Saturday.
Six weeks after denying Trump-targeted GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy a third six-year term in the Senate, a majority of Republican voters in the solidly red Gulf Coast state backed Letlow. Her victory in the runoff is seen as another victory for Trump as he works to fill the halls of Congress with loyal lawmakers for his final two years in the White House. And it’s another sign of the power of a Trump endorsement in .
Five years after he voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, Cassidy was sent packing.
Letlow, who was she entered the race in January, finished first in the primary, double digits ahead of Fleming, with Cassidy in third place. Since no candidate cracked 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming advanced to the runoff for the Republican nomination and Cassidy became the first elected Republican senator to lose renomination since Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012.
Trump, celebrating Cassidy’s defeat, said on social media that “its nice to see that his political career is OVER!”
Cassidy, in a speech to supporters after conceding, took a jab at Trump, saying, “When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. But you don’t pout, you don’t whine. You don’t claim the election was stolen⦠You don’t manufacture some excuse.”
Letlow, who was backed by . Jeff Landry, a top Trump ally, won her congressional seat in 2021, after her husband, Luke Letlow, died five days before being sworn into the U.S. House after his 2020 election victory for the seat she now holds. She highlighted her support from Trump throughout her Senate campaign.
Fleming, who spent eight years in Congress before serving as a White House deputy chief of staff during Trumps first term, argued he was the most conservative candidate in the GOP Senate primary.
Letlow will be considered the clear frontrunner in the against either farmer Jamie Davis or Navy veteran Gary Crockett, who are facing off in the Democratic Party runoff.
The brute force of the president’s endorsement power has been on display in GOP primaries over the past two months, with his candidates ousting incumbents he targeted in showdowns in Indiana, Kentucky and Texas, as well as the Louisiana primary.
But Trump’s endorsement streak in statewide and congressional Republican primaries was snapped three weeks ago when his last-minute endorsement of Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa in the race to succeed retiring GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds wasn’t enough to propel the three-term congressman to victory.
Feenstra was narrowly edged by Zach Lahn, a businessman, farmer and former political strategist who was backed by the political wings of MAHA â the acronym for the Make America Healthy Again movement aligned with Trump’s Health Secretary . â and Turning Point USA, the powerful conservative organization co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
The president rebounded three weeks ago in South Carolina, as Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette finished first in the GOP gubernatorial primary and longtime Trump ally Sen. won a majority of the vote in the Republican Senate primary, and avoided a runoff.
Graham, who was endorsed by Trump, was facing primary challenges from five candidates, including conservative businessman Mark Lynch, who took aim at the senator over his support for the war in Iran. Lynch was backed by some MAGA leaders who have been critical of the president.
Two weeks ago, Trump-backed candidates top races in Georgia and Alabama, with the one setback coming against a billionaire businessman who shelled out over $100 million of his own money to boost his campaign.
Rep. Barry Moore, a House Freedom C
