Rep. Julia Letlow defeated state Treasurer John Fleming in Louisiana’s Republican Senate runoff on Saturday, handing President Trump another primary endorsement win and sealing the political fate of Sen. Bill Cassidy, the incumbent who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial five years ago.
Letlow captured 56.9% of the vote, the Washington Examiner reported, turning what began as a long-shot challenge to a sitting senator into a convincing runoff margin. Trump endorsed Letlow before she even entered the race in January, and the president wasted no time celebrating the result.
The Louisiana outcome is not an isolated data point. It extends a pattern that has played out across multiple states this cycle: Trump picks a candidate, the party base follows, and Republican officeholders who crossed the president find themselves looking for new work. The question heading into the 2026 midterms is no longer whether Trump can shape the GOP primary field. It is whether anyone can stop him.
Bill Cassidy was not supposed to lose. He was a two-term senator in a state Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. But Cassidy cast one of seven Republican votes to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, and the Louisiana GOP electorate did not forget.
Six weeks before Saturday’s runoff, Cassidy finished third in the primary and failed to advance. No candidate cleared 50%, sending Letlow and Fleming to a head-to-head contest. Cassidy became the first elected Republican senator to lose renomination since Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012.
After conceding, Cassidy addressed supporters with a pointed message. As Fox News Digital reported:
“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.”
Trump, for his part, had already posted on social media after Cassidy’s primary elimination that “it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!” On Saturday, the president struck a more gracious tone on Truth Social, writing: “Julia Letlow WON in Louisiana, beating conclusively a very strong and smart opponent. Congratulations to Julia. She will be a truly GREAT Senator!”
Letlow’s political career began in grief. Her husband, Luke Letlow, won the Louisiana congressional seat she now holds in 2020 but died five days before he could be sworn in. Julia Letlow won the seat in 2021 and has held it since.
Her Senate campaign leaned hard into alignment with the president. At her election night watch party, Letlow left no daylight between herself and the White House, the Associated Press reported.
“I am so filled with gratitude for the greatest president this country has ever had, Donald J. Trump.”
She also pledged to work “in lockstep” with Trump, a phrase that drew no apparent objection from Louisiana voters. If she wins the general election, and in a state this red, she is the heavy favorite, Letlow would become Louisiana’s first female Republican senator.
Her opponent in the runoff, John Fleming, had his own Trump-era credentials. Fleming spent eight years in Congress and served as White House deputy chief of staff during Trump’s first term. He argued he was the most conservative candidate in the field. Voters chose differently.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, described as a top Trump ally, also backed Letlow. A Democratic runoff between farmer Jamie Davis and Navy veteran Gary Crockett will determine who faces her in the general election.
Louisiana was not the only state where Trump’s endorsement carried the day. The president has now compiled a substantial record in 2026 Republican primaries, and the results tell a consistent story about where power sits inside the party.
In Alabama, Rep. Barry Moore, a House Freedom Caucus member and longtime Trump supporter, comfortably defeated former Navy SEAL sniper Jared Hudson in the GOP Senate runoff. Hudson had the backing of some prominent figures on the right, but Trump’s nod proved decisive.
In Georgia, Rep. Mike Collins won the Republican Senate runoff with an eleventh-hour Trump endorsement, defeating the candidate backed by popular Gov. Brian Kemp. Collins will face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a general election race that could help determine whether the GOP holds its slim Senate majority after the midterms.
In South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Trump ally, won a majority in his Republican Senate primary, avoiding a runoff despite challenges from five candidates. One challenger, conservative businessman Mark Lynch, took aim at Graham over his support for the war in Iran. Graham had Trump’s endorsement and survived.
Trump also backed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette in the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, where she finished first. And in that state’s gubernatorial runoff, Attorney General Alan Wilson, another Trump endorsee, won in a landslide. The president’s broader foreign policy record, including the Iran peace agreement now nearing a signing, has given his endorsed candidates a strong backdrop to run on.
On Tuesday, businessman and former boxer Anthony Constantino, a Trump-backed first-time candidate, defeated retired Marine Corps colonel Robert Smullen in the upstate New York congressional race to succeed retiring Rep. Elise Stefanik. Smullen had the state party’s backing. It did not matter.
Trump’s endorsement record is not perfect. Three weeks before the Louisiana runoff, his streak in statewide and congressional Republican primaries snapped in Iowa. Rep. Randy Feenstra, a three-term congressman who received a last-minute Trump endorsement in the GOP gubernatorial race, was narrowly edged by Zach Lahn, a businessman, farmer, and former political strategist.
Lahn had the backing of the political wings aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement and Turning Point USA, the conservative organization co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk. The Iowa loss showed that Trump’s endorsement, while powerful, can be overcome, particularly when the endorsement arrives late and the opposing candidate has deep organizational support from within the broader MAGA coalition itself.
Georgia’s gubernatorial runoff offered another wrinkle. Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and Gov. Kemp joined that endorsement over the weekend before the vote. But billionaire Rick Jackson, running as an outsider, spent more than $100 million of his own money and won anyway. The Georgia races illustrated that Trump’s endorsement power, while formidable, faces limits when matched against a self-funding candidate willing to spend at extraordinary levels.
Still, the overall record speaks clearly. Trump-backed candidates won two of three top races in Georgia and Alabama. They won in South Carolina, in upstate New York, and now in Louisiana. The losses were narrow and came against opponents operating within the Trump-aligned universe, not against establishment Republicans running away from the president.
Cassidy’s ouster carries a message that every Republican in Congress can read plainly. Of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, the political consequences have been severe. Cassidy is now the most prominent to lose a primary outright.
The broader 2026 cycle has also claimed Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, and five Indiana state senators, all defeated by Trump-backed challengers, Newsmax reported. The pattern is unmistakable: Republican voters are rewarding loyalty to the president and punishing those who broke with him on high-profile votes.
The recent Senate battles over Trump’s Iran military campaign have only sharpened the loyalty question. Republicans who stood with the president on those votes can point to a peace agreement nearing completion. Those who wavered face a base that is paying attention.
One Letlow voter, 67-year-old Barbara Dufrene of Marrero, Louisiana, captured the mood as directly as anyone. As Breitbart reported, Dufrene described herself as “Trump’s lady all the way,” adding: “I always vote whatever Trump wants.”
That kind of voter is not an outlier in 2026 Republican primaries. She is the electorate.
Letlow now enters a general election she is expected to win comfortably. The Georgia Senate race between Collins and Ossoff will draw far more national attention and money. But the Louisiana result matters beyond the Bayou State because it confirms that Trump’s endorsement remains the single most valuable asset in a Republican primary, and the most dangerous thing to run against.
Fleming had real credentials: years in Congress, a stint in the Trump White House, a claim to being the most conservative candidate in the field. None of it outweighed the fact that Trump had picked someone else.
For the Republican politicians still serving in Washington, the lesson from Louisiana is the same lesson from Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and upstate New York. The GOP base is not interested in résumés. It is interested in whether you stood with the president, and whether the president stands with you.
In today’s Republican Party, that is not a suggestion. It is the price of admission.
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