Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who found himself on President Trump’s revenge list for voting to convict him at his 2021 impeachment trial, lost his bid for a third term Saturday after placing third in the Republican primary.
Rep. Julia Letlow, the Trump-endorsed candidate, placed first but fell short of the outright majority needed to avoid a runoff. She received 45% of the votes cast with 98% of ballots counted.
Ms. Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming, who secured second with 28%, will face off again in the June 27 runoff election.
Mr. Cassidy won 25% of the vote. The president called him a “disloyal disaster” for his 2021 vote to convict him on impeachment charges of inciting an insurrection over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
“Bill Cassidy is a sleazebag, a terrible guy, who is BAD FOR LOUISIANA. Now he’s going to get CLOBBERED, hopefully, in today’s BIG election, by two great people!!!” Mr. Trump posted on social media Saturday morning as Louisiana voters headed to the polls.
Mr. Cassidy referenced the attacks in his concession speech but did not call out Mr. Trump by name.
“Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity,” he said. “And I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet.”
Mr. Cassidy joins a growing list of Republican politicians driven out of office because they broke with Mr. Trump. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump will seek the scalp of another Republican foe, Rep. Thomas Massie, who is facing Trump-backed Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s Republican primary.
The president was back on social media for a victory lap Saturday night, saying Mr. Cassidy’s disloyalty to him after Mr. Trump helped get the senator reelected in 2020 “is now a part of legend.”
“It’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!” the president said. “I’d like to thank the Great People of the State of Louisiana, and this Big Victory will only make me work even harder for your success, and all that comes with it.”
Mr. Trump also congratulated Ms. Letlow on “a fantastic race” for beating an incumbent senator by record margins.
“Julia Letlow is a fantastic person and, after taking care of some additional business, will make a brilliant Senator for the Great People of Louisiana,” he said.
Ms. Letlow credited the president’s support for her first-place finish. She said her ability to earn 45% of the vote despite $26 million in attack ads against her is a “testament to the president’s endorsement, how powerful it is in Louisiana.”
“When he endorsed me in January, I knew this was going to be a tough race, but tonight, Louisiana sent a clear message that they want a candidate to represent them in the Senate who will always put America first and never turn her back on Louisiana voters,” she said.
Mr. Trump’s Democratic critics said Mr. Cassidy’s political demise reflected a dark fate for the entire Republican Party.
“In my experience, Senator Cassidy is a normal, honest and very conservative Republican. And it turns out people like that have less and less of a home in Donald Trump’s Republican Party,” said former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat considering a 2028 presidential run.
“It shows you that the Republican Party is organized less and less around conservative principles, more and more around one man,” Mr. Buttigieg said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Mr. Cassidy made a similar point in his concession speech. “Our country is not about one individual; it is about the welfare of all Americans,” he said.
“It is the welfare of my people and my state and my country and our Constitution to which I am loyal,” he said. “And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves, they’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”
The senator said leaders “should be steady, not erratic, thoughtful, not impulsive.”
Mr. Cassidy took another veiled shot at Mr. Trump when he spoke about elections not always going the way you want.
“But you don’t pout, you don’t whine, you don’t claim that the election was stolen, you don’t find a reason why, you don’t manufacture some excuse,” he said. “You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you’ve had that privilege, and that’s what I’m doing right now.”
With Mr. Cassidy out of the running, Ms. Letlow and Mr. Fleming will likely step up their attacks on each other.
Mr. Fleming, who served four terms in the House and was a founding member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, told The Washington Times in an interview last week that he had a far more conservative voting record than Ms. Letlow.
Ms. Letlow was first elected to Congress in a 2021 special election for a seat her husband won but could not fill because he died of COVID-19 complications a few days before he was to be sworn in.
After his time in the House, Mr. Fleming worked in various roles in the first Trump administration for nearly all four years, finishing the term as the president’s deputy chief of staff.
He told The Times that he lost touch with Mr. Trump after leaving the White House and that the president’s endorsement of Ms. Letlow was a result of a push from Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
Mr. Fleming said he had tried to talk with the president about the race before that but “was blocked at every turn, all the people surrounding him, his chief of staff, his deputy chief of staff.”
“However, I had a subsequent conversation with President Trump after not being able to be in contact with him for months, and after we became reacquainted … he said, ’Well, you’re fantastic.’ He said, ’Why didn’t you call me before?’”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said Mr. Trump told him Sunday that Mr. Cassidy’s defeat shows that there is “no room in the GOP” for his opponents.
“If you align with Democrats to stop his agenda like Massie does, you’re going to lose. If you align with Democrats to drive him out of office, like Cassidy did, you’re going to lose,” Mr. Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I disagree with President Trump on occasion,” he said. “He endorsed me. It’s been enormously helpful to me. Thank you, President Trump, for endorsing me. It’s helped me in my primary.”
• Kerry Picket contributed to this report.
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