Former Rep. John Fleming, now the Louisiana state treasurer, on Wednesday launched a 2026 primary challenge to Sen. Bill Cassidy, a fellow Republican who voted to convict Donald Trump at his second impeachment trial.
Fleming, who served four terms in the House and later worked in the first Trump administration, cited his “deep sense of pride” in having served the former president and said Cassidy had “failed the people of Louisiana.”
“A number of Republicans walked away from President Trump in the last year of his first term, but those who turned their backs on him and America First were not committed to his fight to make America great again,” Fleming said in a statement announcing his campaign.
Both Cassidy and Fleming are medical doctors.
Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to find Trump guilty of inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol – a vote that could represent the senator’s biggest hurdle to winning a third term in two years time. And unlike previous years, Louisiana will be holding partisan primaries for congressional races in 2026, a potential further obstacle for Cassidy.
Cassidy’s campaign has sought to project strength as he gears up or reelection, releasing a list of his campaign’s Finance Committee members last month and noting that he’s set to kick off the cycle with the most cash on hand for any incumbent Louisiana senator – he had $5.9 million banked as of September 30, according to his third-quarter federal filings.
Fleming, a staunch conservative who helped found the House Freedom Caucus, ran for Louisiana’s other Senate seat in 2016 but finished fifth in the jungle primary, in the election eventually won by Republican John Kennedy, now the state’s junior senator.
Asked Wednesday night at the Capitol about Fleming’s challenge, Cassidy said: “He’s been trying to get out of Louisiana, and so this is his latest attempt.”
Louisiana has historically run its federal elections differently from other states, holding an all-party primary in the fall, with the top two candidates advancing to a run-off if no one earned more than 50 percent of the vote.
But the state is changing the process for some offices in the 2026 elections and will hold party primaries to select general election nominees for congressional races, among others. A primary run-off will be held if no candidate secures a majority.
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