Louisiana
Republican Louisiana senator in tough primary after Trump backs opponent
The power of Donald Trump’s endorsement will be put to its latest test on Saturday, when Louisiana holds primary elections in which the US senator Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach the president following the January 6 insurrection, then tried to make amends by casting the pivotal vote to confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary, stands a chance of losing his party’s nomination.
An incumbent Republican running for a third term representing a deeply Republican state, Cassidy would normally be a shoo-in for re-election. But in January, Trump abruptly said that the US representative Julia Letlow should run against Cassidy and offered his endorsement, underscoring his continued willingness to seek revenge against anyone in the Republican party who has crossed him.
The president’s campaign to oust a senator of his own party – the sort of thing that was unheard of in previous administrations, but not under Trump – may have achieved the desired effect. Letlow promptly jumped into the Republican Senate primary, as did state treasurer and former representative John Fleming. An Emerson College poll released last month showed Cassidy in third place among likely Republican voters, with Fleming and Letlow neck and neck for the lead.
“This is a primary that is mostly about Trump,” said Robert Hogan, a Louisiana State University political science professor, adding that the president’s spurning of Cassidy was probably the “death knell” for his time in the Senate.
Should he indeed lose re-election this year, Cassidy would join a growing list of Republicans whose political careers have ended at Trump’s hands. Earlier this month, five of the seven Republican Indiana state senators who halted a Trump-backed effort to gerrymander the state in Republicans’ favor lost their primaries. In North Carolina, Republicans are in a high-stakes battle to keep hold of one of their Senate seats because Thom Tillis has opted to retire, after breaking with Trump last year over his top domestic policy bill.
A gastroenterologist who co-founded a clinic serving uninsured patients in Baton Rouge, Cassidy served in the House of Representatives before beating the Democratic senator Mary Landrieu in 2014. During Trump’s first term, he was an architect of the failed Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
His relationship with the president soured following the assault on the Capitol by the president’s supporters, after which Cassidy and six other Republicans voted to convict Trump in the Senate, but the effort came up short. Cassidy later supported a fruitless attempt to establish an independent commission investigating the insurrection, and called on Trump to end his 2024 re-election bid after his indictment for allegedly possessing classified material.
Louisiana’s Republican party censured Cassidy in 2021 for his vote in Trump’s trial, and the senator’s political peril intensified when Trump returned to the White House last year.
Cassidy cast the deciding vote to advance vaccine skeptic Kennedy’s nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services out of the Senate health committee, which he chairs. The decision flew in the face of the senator’s training as a physician and his stated support for immunizations, and was widely seen as an attempt to smooth things over with the president.
Trump’s endorsement of Letlow made clear the senator’s effort was insufficient. Cassidy has meanwhile criticized some of Kennedy’s policies as secretary, and opposed Trump’s attempt to have the wellness influencer Casey Means confirmed as US surgeon general, leading Trump to blame the senator for having to withdraw her nomination.
In Louisiana, changes to the primary system probably worsened the prospects for Cassidy’s political career. In 2024, the Republican governor, Jeff Landry, a prominent Trump supporter, worked with the legislature to change the rules of the state’s US Senate primaries so that candidates are nominated only by party members and unaffiliated voters. Ron Faucheux, a veteran political strategist in Louisiana, said he suspected the changes were intended to ensure that Republicans like Cassidy who fall out of favor with Trump have no avenue to remain in office.
“The new primary system is geared to help staunch, conservative, pro-Trump candidates get elected, because it’s geared to nominate them on the Republican side and putting them in the runoffs against Democrats, [who] nobody thinks can win,” he said.
Cassidy’s campaign has acknowledged the difficulty of this year’s re-election campaign, and said their goal is for the senator to finish in the top two of the primary, and advance to a runoff election scheduled for next month.
“The mission is pretty simple. It’s to go out, get as many votes as we can on Saturday and position ourselves well for the runoff election to come in June,” campaign consultant Mark Harris told reporters this week.
Both of Cassidy’s challengers have sought to convince voters they are the president’s choice, with Letlow noting her endorsements from both Trump and Landry, and Fleming’s campaign distributing photos of him posing with the president.
Cassidy has meanwhile focused on criticizing Letlow, saying that the race was hers to lose. Dubbing her “Lib Letlow”, his campaign has seized on comments she made in support of campus diversity programs while interviewing to lead the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Letlow has since publicly repudiated those initiatives.
If there’s a saving grace for Cassidy, it could be unaffiliated voters, whose views have not been captured in polls, Faucheux said. But even if Cassidy makes it to a runoff, the president’s opposition will present a significant headwind.
“My guess is that a runoff would be tough for Cassidy, because even though there’s a lot of personal animosity between Letlow and Fleming in the campaign, I think a lot of their voters would tend to be pretty strongly pro-Trump voters,” he said.
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Louisiana is expanding the fishing limit for its signature saltwater game fish as part of the state’s American 250 celebration, Gov. Jeff Landry and his Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Tyler Bosworth announced.
Bosworth signed a declaration of emergency to increase the red snapper bag limit from four fish per person to five fish per person for three days from July 2 to July 5 on Independence Day weekend.
“The celebration of America’s 250th birthday is a time to reflect on the blessings and abundant resources we have in our country and here in Louisiana, the Sportsman’s Paradise,’’ Bosworth said. “Increasing our red snapper limit to five fish is a way we’d like to thank the anglers of our state as they enjoy this special holiday with family and friends.’’
Landry is an avid angler, hunter and outdoorsman.
“The increase in the red snapper limit for the holiday weekend is a great way to celebrate America’s 250th birthday,” the governor said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing anglers across our state celebrating our nation’s independence in Sportsman’s Paradise.”
Louisiana is considered the epicenter of red snapper fishing in the Gulf of America, with Venice and Grand Isle as the state’s premier launching spots to reach the most prolific snapper grounds in the Gulf.
Venice is often call the “Red Snapper Capital.”
The state’s extensive offshore oil and gas rigs and artificial reefs provide exceptional access to massive populations for snapper, which are prized for their fight and taste.
Bosworth encourages anglers to reduce barotrauma while fishing for red snapper and other reef fish by using descending devices to return fish to a survivable depth before being released. See the LDWF barotrauma webpage for more information.
The bag limit will revert to four fish per person, per day on July 6.
For additional questions regarding the current red snapper season, go to the agency’s Red Snapper webpage.
Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – A 53-year-old Louisiana man will serve 22 years in prison following a child sex crimes case that included possession of handmade childlike sex dolls — items that state lawmakers have since moved to ban.
Sabine Parish prosecutors say Yancy Elie Normand was sentenced after investigators received a tip that he forced someone to view child sexual abuse material. A search of his home allegedly uncovered more than 200 illegal files — including child sexual abuse material and bestiality — along with two handmade childlike sex dolls.
New state law bans child sex dolls
Louisiana lawmakers passed a law banning the possession, trafficking, and importation of child sex dolls statewide in 2024. State Sen. Beth Mizell said the push began after conversations with Homeland Security about human trafficking during the Super Bowl in New Orleans, at a time when the state had no specific law covering the dolls. The measure passed with near-unanimous support.
“I think the importance is that it’s a precursor to actual crimes against children,” Mizell said.
Mizell said the issue extends well beyond Louisiana’s borders.
“It’s a nationwide problem…when you look at just the volume of child abuse cases, to the point where our Attorney General now has multiple task forces in place all over the state,” Mizell said.
Task force expands statewide reach
The Louisiana Attorney General’s Office says protecting children remains the focus of its Louisiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Supervisory Special Agent Chris Masters leads the group, which now includes more than 80 agencies and 250 detectives.
Masters said the dolls are often misunderstood by the public.
“When people hear sex doll, they think of the blow-up thing. These things are thousands of dollars, and they’re anatomically appropriate to a child,” Masters said. “They’re gonna look like a child. It’s not just what you think on TV.”
Masters said coordination across agencies is essential to the task force’s work.
“It’s completely impossible if law enforcement is not together on the same page with the same type of training, the same access, the same type of equipment,” Masters said. “We can tend to continue expanding our partnerships until there is no safe haven for any sex predator or child predator in this state.”
Lawmakers urge parents to monitor children’s online activity
Mizell said the volume of harmful material accessible online makes parental awareness critical.
“You have access to abhorrent material online in your hand all day, every day,” Mizell said. “Pay attention. Don’t be afraid to look at your child’s phone.”
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MONROE, La. (KNOE)—Over the past week, average gas prices in Louisiana have fallen 6.8 cents. That averages to $3.41/g today, according to a survey of 2,436 stations conducted by ‘GasBuddy’.
Compared to a month ago, prices in Louisiana are 45.3 cents lower per gallon. The lowest price of gas in Louisiana was $2.59/g on Sunday, with the highest being $4.99/g.
For reference, the national average price of gas has fallen 6.9 cents per gallon in the last week, which averages to $3.78/g, and is down 55.6 cents per gallon from a month ago.
On this date for the past five years, here’s how Louisiana’s gas prices compare to the nation’s average:
June 29, 2025: $2.75/g (U.S. Average: $3.14/g)
June 29, 2024: $2.93/g (U.S. Average: $3.48/g)
June 29, 2023: $3.02/g (U.S. Average: $3.51/g)
June 29, 2022: $4.37/g (U.S. Average: $4.85/g)
June 29, 2021: $2.76/g (U.S. Average: $3.12/g)
Copyright 2026 KNOE. All rights reserved.
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