Just over four years ago, Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy committed a cardinal sin for the GOP in the age of Donald Trump — voting to convict the then-former president on impeachment charges after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
That vote — and a change in Louisiana’s primary rules — has thrown the once comfortably reelected senator into his toughest race yet. He will face at least one GOP challenger and is in real danger of being ousted. But even if Cassidy does lose in the GOP contest, it’s hard to see Democrats making this competitive, even if they get a prized recruit.
Cassidy, who hails from a deep red state and even faced a censure from his own state party after casting his vote to convict, was the most surprising dissenter among the seven GOP senators who deemed Trump guilty. But when he made that political calculus, he was staring down a very different — and then distant — 2026 reelection bid. Unlike most other Republicans, Cassidy would face a more forgiving primary electorate —
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