The storied career of Sen. John Cornyn came to a swift and decisive end at the hands of the GOP voters who once propelled him to power.

The senator was a towering figure in both national and Texas politics, known for his sober temperament, ability to cut deals and role in shaping the Senate GOP conference during the last four presidencies. Then, just about an hour after polls closed Tuesday, Cornyn lost his primary to Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued MAGA darling who was boosted by President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement.

Cornyn’s defeat is rattling the establishment wing of the GOP, who viewed the brutal primary as a battle for the soul of the party. His supporters mourn his approaching absence in the Senate as another example of an institutionalist who fell victim to the rise of the populist right, what they see as the end of an era of compassionate conservatism.

“It just blows my mind that anybody could look at John Cornyn and somehow call him a secret liberal RINO,” said Josh Schroeder, mayor of Georgetown, Texas, and a Cornyn supporter. “If that guy can't pass a conservative litmus test, who can?”

Cornyn's loss stands to further deplete the corps of senators willing to work across the aisle on thorny policy issues, from immigration reform to gun safety — potentially contributing further to increasing polarization on Capitol Hill.

While Cornyn was not a frequent bipartisan operator in the mold of former Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) or Rob Portman (R-Ohio), he occasionally dug in to try and find compromise. His loss comes just ten days after fellow Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost his own primary to a Trump-backed challenger. Before that, it had been 14 years since the last elected senator lost a primary.

“He's always been about delivering results for Texas rather than chasing headlines,” said Brian Walsh, Cornyn’s former communications director. “He respects the Senate as his institution and believes deeply in doing the work the right way, even when it's difficult, or I would say politically inconvenient.”

His participation was often crucial as a member of the GOP leadership team and a key Republican fundraiser who operated with the tacit approval of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who served as GOP leader for nearly all of Cornyn's tenure.

Even though his supporters were long skeptical of his odds in the primary, Cornyn chose to go down swinging. He continued to run negative ads against Paxton throughout Texas until the last minute, harping on Paxton’s indiscretions. And he warned during an appearance on Fox News on Tuesday that the attorney general would be an “albatross” on the rest of the Republican ticket “likely to have a negative drag on the down ballot races in Texas, judges, local officials, House of Representatives, you name it."

But those moral arguments did not sway a majority of primary voters — or Trump, who chose to endorse the attorney general and cited Cornyn’s decision to wait to endorse his third presidential run as proof he was insufficiently loyal.

Paxton’s supporters have long shrugged off his long trail of criminal and ethics investigations, impeachment by the state legislature and ongoing divorce, complete with accusations of infidelity, believing that his commitment to carrying the MAGA torch was more important than corruption allegations or a messy personal life. Paxton, for his part, has tried to focus the campaign on his qualifications for the Senate — and allegiance to Trump.

Paxton also benefitted from a strong anti-incumbency sentiment rippling throughout Texas. The GOP base was ripe for his argument that Cornyn was too enmeshed in the D.C. swamp to justify sending back to Washington even as those attacks bewildered Cornyn’s supporters, who pointed to his long record of voting for Trump’s agenda.

As majority whip during Trump’s first term, Cornyn helped shepherd the president’s signature tax bill across the finish line. In 2024, he fell just a few votes short of becoming majority leader against Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). And few Republicans have demonstrated fundraising prowess like Cornyn, the former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who has brought in more than $400 million throughout the course of his political career.

“Senate Republicans were very eager to see their friend and colleague continue, and Cornyn is one of those guys that would’ve raised money for his fellow incumbents. That’s unlikely to continue,” said a GOP Senate strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Trump, after weeks of standing on the sidelines, swooped in at the start of early voting to back Paxton, a reward for the attorney general supporting his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Cornyn, on the other hand, voted to certify the results.

Throughout the bitter campaign, Cornyn shifted to the right on some issues, adopting the fiery language of the MAGA base, which was seen as an effort to endear himself to Trump in a bid for his endorsement. Most prominently, he ran an ad declaring that “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology.”

When Paxton cleverly declared that he would drop out of the primary if the Senate GOP killed the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s priority election bill, that staved off the president’s planned endorsement of Cornyn. The Texas senator belatedly announced a reversal of his longheld support of the filibuster. And Cornyn introduced a bill two weeks ago to rename a major U.S. highway Interstate 47 to honor Trump. But it came far too late to save him.

But in a hyper-partisan environment, Cornyn’s decisions to occasionally work with Democrats doomed his standing among the rabidly conservative base in Texas.

Cornyn kept to the outskirts of high-stakes bipartisan immigration talks, such as the "Gang of Eight" that sought a comprehensive overhaul in 2013. But he later partnered with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in exploring a narrower, border-security-focused bill.

He also found success reaching across the aisle in 2022 on gun safety legislation in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was modest relative to Democratic demands for stricter gun control. But it was still the most significant federal gun legislation in a generation — and it provoked intense backlash among hard-right voters in Texas.

"We both know that when we’re doing what’s right, it doesn’t matter what other people think,” Cornyn texted Sinema at the time.

Four years later, Paxton made the legislation a centerpiece of his campaign, accusing Cornyn of shepherding "the worst gun control bill in decades.”

Texas will now be swept up in an expensive and competitive Senate race, with Democrats amped to compete against Paxton, who they view as more vulnerable than Cornyn in a midterm environment favorable to their party. Many believe Democratic nominee and state Rep. James Talarico is their best shot in a generation at flipping a statewide seat.

Schroeder, who represents a small town in Talarico’s former district, said the Democrat is capable of pulling off a strong campaign: “He appears to be campaigning from the high road while the Democratic party is just slicing Paxton to shreds because they got a whole lot of ammunition.”

In the aftermath of the brutal primary, some Republicans fear that the state of the GOP is dire – and potentially unable to unify ahead of November with the possibility that some Cornyn supporters will sit out the race entirely or vote for Talarico. After the race was quickly called on Tuesday, Talarico posted on X: “To Senator Cornyn’s supporters: you have a place in our campaign.”

In his concession speech, Cornyn said he will support the GOP ticket: “I’ve fought the good fight, I’ve finished the race, and I’ve kept the faith.”

“I’ll have more to say later.”

Mike DeBonis and Samuel Benson contributed to this article.

© Illustration by Claudine Hellmuth/POLITICO (source images via Francis Chung/POLITICO and iStock)

Rep. Chip Roy lost the GOP runoff for Texas attorney general after a challenger to his right painted him as insufficiently loyal to MAGA.

State Sen. Mayes Middleton’s victory Tuesday proves that fealty to President Donald Trump continues to be the defining issue for Republican primary voters.

Middleton convinced voters he was the best Republican to carry the MAGA torch from outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is competing in his own Republican runoff Tuesday, against Sen. John Cornyn, for the Texas Senate seat.

Roy, a Freedom Caucus member, failed to overcome accusations that he betrayed the conservative movement by occasionally breaking with Trump, both over fiscal spending and in voting to certify Trump’s 2020 election loss. Trump made no endorsement in the race.

Middleton finished ahead of Roy in the March primary, knocking out two other opponents. A wealthy oil businessman from Galveston, Texas, Middleton loaned his campaign more than $16 million.

If he were to get elected as attorney general, Middleton would help shape the future of the Republican Party post-Trump, playing a key role leading the conservative legal movement.

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© Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the Senate GOP runoff Tuesday, cementing the influence of the far right in Texas and potentially putting the seat in play for November.

Paxton was boosted by a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump in the final days of the race. His defeat of Cornyn, a towering figure in Texas politics and four-term incumbent, is a major MAGA coup.

But establishment Republicans and major national donors have warned that a Paxton victory would lead to a costly general election against Democratic nominee James Talarico. Head-to-head polling shows Talarico with a slight lead over Paxton.

Paxton overcame his deficit in the March primary, where he finished narrowly behind Cornyn, by leaning on his grassroots support among MAGA voters — a base he’s cultivated throughout his tenure in Texas.

He also overcame millions of dollars in attack ads from Cornyn that highlighted his long trail of personal and political scandals. And Trump’s endorsement one week before the primary runoff likely sealed the deal.

© Tony Gutierrez/AP

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he wants to end his campaign on a “positive” note. Sen. John Cornyn, however, is prepared to go down fighting.

Paxton said Thursday he’s pulling his negative ads against Cornyn in the final days ahead of their bruising GOP primary for Texas’ Senate seat. The move reveals that the MAGA warrior, bolstered by President Donald Trump’s endorsement, is confident in his ability to clinch the Republican nomination.

But Cornyn, who’s facing an uphill battle to keep his seat, responded that he will keep his own attacks coming, leaning into Paxton’s long trail of personal and political scandals.

In a race that’s been defined by personal shots, the latest online dustup between the two underscores the difficult path forward for the Texas GOP after next week’s runoff election. The Paxton-Cornyn matchup has deepened divisions between the MAGA and establishment wings of the GOP, and the fighting between the two camps has gotten so ugly that some Republicans are fearful it will dampen turnout in the midterms, hurt down-ticket Republicans — and possibly cost them the seat.

Paxton’s announcement came after Texas GOP Chair Abraham George, a fellow conservative hardliner, asked the candidates to move beyond their feud out of consideration of the fight ahead to keep the seat red. The attorney general, who has gone after Cornyn for being too old to continue serving in Congress, wrote on X that his campaign has “already changed our TV ad traffic starting today to ensure our campaign ends on a positive note and that we can focus on beating the leftist lunatic in the fall,” referring to Democratic nominee James Talarico.

He called on Cornyn “to do the same for the good of our party. A Super PAC supporting Paxton, Lone Star Liberty, also announced Tuesday it was pulling its own negative ads.

Cornyn respondedin a post on X that Paxton is “desperate to avoid accountability” — and laid out exactly how bruising his ads will remain, saying the campaign needs a few more days to make sure voters know “that you plea bargained with a child sex offender, offering them only one day in prison and no sex offender registry as a favor” to a donor. He was referring to a recent report by the Texas Tribune on a plea deal Paxton offered to a man facing sexual abuse charges.

Cornyn and his allies have poured millions into brutal, personal ads trying to defeat Paxton — and they’ve had a lot of material to work with. Paxton has faced an impeachment attempt by the state legislature, ethics complaints from his staff and a federal securities fraud investigation. He’s currently going through a divorce that his wife filed for on “biblical grounds.”

Republicans are increasingly concerned that a Paxton nomination would put the seat in jeopardy, given his significant personal and political baggage, and bracing to spend upwards of $100 million to bail him out in the general election. Cornyn finished narrowly ahead of Paxton in the March primary, but the Trump endorsement puts Paxton in a strong position to overcome that deficit.

“We are going to continue to tell the truth about Paxton,” Cornyn said in another post. “He’s escaped accountability for too long. Judgment day is coming.”

© Tony Gutierrez/AP; Eric Gay/AP

President Donald Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for Texas’ Senate GOP race in an eleventh-hour decision, siding with a longtime MAGA ally — and potentially imperiling GOP control of the seat.

Trump’s endorsement Tuesday gives Paxton a late boost over establishment Republicans’ preferred candidate, Sen. John Cornyn, ahead of next week’s May primary runoff, where polls show a razor-thin race. And it comes after the president refused for months to take sides, in spite of heavy lobbying from both Cornyn’s and Paxton’s allies.

The timing of the last-minute endorsement comes as a surprise, months after he was initially expected to jump in: Just on Monday, Cornyn said “the ship has finally sailed” regarding Trump’s stamp of approval.

"Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. "John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

Cornyn and his supporters fear that nominating scandal-plagued Paxton, a figure of the far right with significant personal baggage, would put control of the Senate at risk and cost the party hundreds of millions of dollars to defend the seat this fall.

As Texas’ top lawyer for a decade, Paxton has faced impeachment, a securities fraud investigation, ethics complaints and an ongoing divorce with allegations of infidelity. Democrats believe they have the best shot in decades at winning statewide in Texas, and Republicans worry that Democratic nominee James Talarico is a formidable opponent.

White House allies predicted that Cornyn’s stronger-than-expected showing in the first round of voting would convince Trump to endorse him. The president played into those expectations when he posted on Truth Social back in early March that the Texas GOP primary can’t “be allowed to go on any longer” and he would announce his pick soon.

But in the end, after more than six weeks of delay, Trump was swayed by the MAGA wing of the party who see Paxton as a true believer in their movement and despise Cornyn for occasionally being at odds with the president.

Paxton is a staunch Trump ally who supported his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And after some White House allies told POLITICO and other media outlets that Trump was looking at endorsing Cornyn, MAGA influencers including Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec led a public full-court press to get Trump to reverse course.

Paxton, ahead of Trump’s decision, said he would consider stepping aside if the Senate chose to eliminate the filibuster and pass the "SAVE America Act," the elections overhaul bill that has since stalled in the Senate over GOP divisions. That offer was seen among Texas Republicans as a ploy from Paxton to remind Trump that the pair are closely aligned, while driving a wedge between the president and Cornyn, an establishment Republican who is opposed to removing the filibuster.

© Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

President Donald Trump keeps knocking out his political enemies in the GOP. On Saturday, Sen. Bill Cassidy was the latest to fall.

It’s a massive warning sign for any Republicans who’ve provoked the president’s wrath: Trump’s revenge campaign has already mobilized voters in both Indiana, where he successfully ousted several state GOP senators over redistricting, and Saturday night in Louisiana. Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia and Kentucky, where Rep. Thomas Massie is up for reelection and he’s picked sides in the open Senate race, will be another test. Now, the president is entering those races with the wind at his back. 

Cassidy’s distant third-place finish marks the end of his tenure in the Senate, one that was doomed by his vote to convict Trump on impeachment charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection five years ago.

That decision ostracized him from Louisiana’s rabidly conservative base and set up two strong primary challengers in Rep. Julia Letlow — the Trump-endorsed candidate — and MAGA-friendly state Treasurer John Fleming. Up until polls closed, Cassidy maintained that his massive war chest, his record in Congress and a high turnout of non-party voters would be enough to save him.

In the end, it was not.

“For a man with such a formidable intellect, his political strategy was breathtakingly dense,” said Lionel Rainey, a Louisiana GOP strategist, who is unaffiliated with any of the campaigns. “History will remember Bill Cassidy as the absolute smartest guy in the political morgue.”

Letlow, boosted by Trump’s support, advanced to a runoff with a significant lead over Fleming — evidence that his endorsement is still key for Republican voters and can boost a candidate who begins a race with relatively low name ID and fundraising power.

Trump on Saturday night declared online that Cassidy’s “disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!”

As Cassidy took the stage in Baton Rouge to concede and thank his supporters, he appeared to repeatedly needle Trump in his remarks, possibly previewing a potentially adversarial role to the White House he will take on as a lame duck senator.

"Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity, I find that people of character and integrity don't spend their time attacking people on the internet,” he said at one point, after taking apparent digs at Trump for refusing to accept his 2020 loss was legitimate and declaring that “leaders should think through the consequences of their actions.”

Cassidy’s suddenly pointed criticism of the president following his loss suggests he could quickly turn into a headache for the White House. He has already blocked a handful of White House appointees, and still chairs the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Without the need to woo the president, he could follow the path of retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and refuse to fall in line on some key votes — an important factor in a fairly narrowly divided Senate.

Throughout the campaign, Cassidy tried to cast Letlow as insufficiently conservative, nicknaming her “Liberal Letlow” and hammering her for her past support of diversity initiatives in higher education. But those attacks did not stick.

Trump didn’t dip into his own MAGA Inc. coffers or appear on the campaign trail to elevate Letlow — but she still benefited from some of his allies. The Make America Healthy Again PAC pledged $1 million in support of her candidacy, angered by Cassidy’s skepticism of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becoming the Health and Human Services secretary. Those frustrations grew when the senator blocked Casey Means’ nomination as U.S. Surgeon General, which the White House later pulled.

Cassidy’s attempt at self-preservation was also stymied by the rise of Fleming, a former Freedom Caucus member who claimed he was the most conservative candidate in the race. In the final hours, Fleming got a shoutout from Trump as well, who posted earlier Saturday that Cassidy must be “CLOBBERED” by “two great people!!!”.

Letlow’s first-place finish is a boon for Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who aggressively campaigned for her with his endorsement, pressured big donors to get in line behind her and was behind Louisiana closing its primary system — a move that disadvantaged Cassidy, who has historically brought in some Democratic voters.

The runoff, scheduled for late June, sets up a new battle for the president’s base: Do they go with the Trump-chosen option in Letlow or the other MAGA candidate in Fleming, who previously worked as White House aide under Trump? Pre-runoff polls showed a close race between the two, though Letlow comfortably led Fleming in the first round. The extended primary is sure to be bruising.

As the polls closed on Saturday evening, Trump had already begun to expand his target map, singling out Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) for campaigning on behalf of Massie, who is facing his own tough reelection fight in Kentucky against Trump-backed primary challenger Ed Gallrein. (Colorado’s filing deadline has already closed, so it’s unlikely that threat can be carried out this election.)

“Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District?” he wrote on Truth Social. “Even though I long ago endorsed Boebert, if the right person came along, it would be my Honor to withdraw that Endorsement, and endorse a good and proper alternative.”

© Illustration by Lauren Bulbin/POLITICO (source images via Getty Images, iStock and The White House)

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) just lost his seat — a key victory for President Donald Trump’s revenge tour this cycle.

Rep. Julia Letlow, the Trump-backed candidate, and state Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a runoff in the Louisiana GOP Senate primary on Saturday, with Cassidy finishing in third place.

It’s a remarkable result: Cassidy is the first previously elected senator of either party to lose in a primary since 2012. The two-term senator and chair of the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee failed to even make the runoff, finishing with roughly a quarter of the vote.

Both Letlow and Fleming benefited from MAGA voters’ frustrations with Cassidy for his 2021 vote to convict Trump on impeachment charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and for his skepticism of Trump’s decision to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary.

The president, who has been itching to oust Cassidy, finally got his wish Saturday. The result follows Trump’s successful attempts to oust several GOP state senators in Indiana last month over redistricting clashes.

Letlow, a three-term representative from north Louisiana, jumped into the race with Trump’s endorsement, a huge boost in the deep-red state. Gov. Jeff Landry also endorsed her and worked behind the scenes to help her campaign, and the Make America Healthy Again PAC committed $1 million to supporting her.

Fleming, a former member of Congress and White House aide under Trump, drew deep grassroots support during his campaign and was able to cut into Letlow’s polling lead in the final days of the race.

The runoff will extend an already expensive battle for the GOP nomination to late June. Early polls suggest a tight race between Letlow and Fleming, though Letlow had a clear advantage in the first round of voting.

CLARIFICATION: This article has been revised to clarify that it was 2012 when the last previously elected senator lost a primary.

© Tyler Kaufman/Getty Images

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy is on the ropes.

The Republican is fighting for his political life as he fends off two primary challengers capitalizing on MAGA outrage over his 2021 impeachment vote against President Donald Trump. In Louisiana, there’s a growing belief that Cassidy wont be able to overcome strong headwinds to even nab a run-off spot in the primary election on Saturday, according to nearly a dozen interviews with GOP officials, lawmakers and strategists in the state.

Should Cassidy finish third and lose outright, it would mark a stunning defeat for the two-term incumbent and herald a significant win for Trump in his grudge match against Republicans who cross him.

“When it comes to stabbing Trump in the back with that vote to impeach, the memories are very long,” said Kevin Berken, the Jefferson Davis Parish GOP chair, who opposes Cassidy in the race and is leaning toward supporting Fleming.

Most polling puts Cassidy in third place, behind Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming, another MAGA candidate. Cassidy was ostracized by the state Republican Party following his impeachment vote. Trump has slammed him as “very disloyal,” urging Louisiana Republicans to vote him out.

The Louisiana GOP primary is the latest stop in Trump’s revenge tour this month, with a number of his biggest enemies fighting for reelection. It began in Indiana, where the president and his allies successfully ousted five state lawmakers as punishment for refusing to redraw congressional lines in favor of the GOP. After Cassidy’s race, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie is up next with his primary on May 19.

Still, in Louisiana, Trump hasn’t done much to boost his chosen candidate.

On Saturday, he reupped his support for Letlow, saying "she is a winner who will NEVER let you down" in a post on Truth Social. But beyond a few posts online, Trump has been largely silent, despite pushing her into the race in January with his endorsement. He continues to withhold his massive $300 million-plus MAGA Inc. war chest and did not make an appearance on her behalf during the campaign.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, in his Saturday Truth Social post, took another swipe at Cassidy: "He turned around and voted to IMPEACH me for something that has now proven to be total 'bullshit!'"

"That is not something I think about," Cassidy told POLITICO in a brief interview Saturday. "That is a decision I made five years ago. What I think about is the present and the future of my state. If somebody wants to focus on that, if my opponent is focused on that, she's thinking about five years ago. I'm thinking about five years from now."

The Cassidy campaign has said it is well aware of the challenges confronting them, but they remain confident about the senator’s chances given his record in Congress. Cassidy campaign adviser Mark Harris said this week that their data shows the incumbent will likely not finish first but is in a good position to qualify for the run-off, thanks in part to a high number of non-party voters casting ballots in Louisiana’s closed primary.

“It's sort of Julia's to lose in the first round,” Harris said. “Our data indicates we have a very strong chance to put together a winning coalition, and then [win] in the run-off.”

But Cassidy’s history of frustrating MAGA goes beyond just the impeachment vote. He rankled the MAGA faithful — and the emerging Make America Healthy Again coalition — by sharply questioning Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccines during his Senate confirmation. He further angered the MAHA movement by helping block the nomination of health influencer Casey Means to be U.S. Surgeon General.

His actions have pushed the Kennedy-aligned MAHA PAC to pledge spending $1 million on Letlow’s behalf as they seek to oust Cassidy — though the influence of its spending remains to be seen.

“MAHA issues are in fact central to this race and to races all around the country, where in many cases they poll higher than most other issues for voters, especially for the all-important undecided voters,” MAHA PAC leader Tony Lyons previously told POLITICO in a text. “It’s true that Big Pharma and big food would like to convince voters otherwise, but Julia Letlow is a strong insurgent candidate and she will win.”

Nonpartisan polling shows Cassidy trailing both Fleming and Letlow, with an Emerson College Survey from late April putting him at 21 percent support, behind Fleming at 28 percent and Letlow at 27 percent.

“What we’ve known all along is now becoming clear to everyone watching this race: Julia Letlow has the support, the momentum, and the trust of Louisiana Republicans,” said Katherine Thordahl, Letlow campaign spokesperson, in a statement. “Unfortunately for Bill Cassidy, Louisianans have never forgotten Bill Cassidy’s vote to convict President Trump, which remains the defining contrast in this race.”

Cassidy’s path to a run-off isn’t completely closed.

He’s benefitting from the anti-Cassidy MAGA vote being split between Letlow and Fleming, who has summoned strong grassroots support throughout his campaign. Fleming has declared himself the most conservative candidate in the race, pointing to his record as a member of the House Freedom Caucus. He also served as a White House aide during Trump’s first administration as deputy chief of staff.

“Neither one of them can claim a stronger conservative voting record,” Fleming said in an interview. “Between them, I stand alone so I think that's the real driver of my lead on this.”

Berken said in an interview he was leaning toward supporting Fleming due to his conservative credentials. “I know what I get with John Fleming, and even though President Trump endorsed Julia, I think he did that at Governor Landry's behest,” he said, referring to GOP Gov. Jeff Landry’s campaign to elect Letlow to the Senate.

Letlow and Fleming have spent the final days of the campaign attacking each other, a sign that they expect to face each other in the run-off — or that they believe Cassidy may end up pulling off a surprising rise if they continue to split the MAGA vote.

Cassidy, meanwhile, continues to train all of his fire on Letlow in the home stretch. The senator has attempted to cast her as insufficiently conservative, nicknaming her “Liberal Letlow” and hammering her for past comments she made in support of diversity initiatives in higher education. Letlow has since disavowed those programs, arguing they have been hijacked by the left.

By going so hard against Letlow, "Cassidy's committing murder suicide," said one Louisiana GOP strategist who’s unaffiliated in the race, granted anonymity to speak freely. The strategist predicted that Fleming would emerge with the most votes.

Letlow, in response to negative campaigning from both of her opponents, has made Trump’s endorsement the centerpiece of her campaign, offered up as proof she passes the MAGA litmus test.

"What I'm hearing is this actually looks pretty, pretty tight, with a lot of undecideds right now," said Jamey Sandefur, chair of the Livingston Parish GOP. "I'm getting the sense that a lot of people are walking into the booth and deciding when they get there."

"I've always thought that endorsements don't really matter, but I have heard a lot of people tell me that the Trump endorsement of Congresswoman Letlow is going to be the deciding factor for them,” he said. “So that's playing in the race a lot more than I had expected."

Adam Wren contributed reporting.

© Gerald Herbert/AP Photo

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry wants to be a kingmaker. But his efforts to elevate Rep. Julia Letlow’s Senate campaign is irritating other Republicans in the state.

The first-term GOP governor has become a central figure in President Donald Trump’s revenge tour, working to boost Letlow to take down Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who is viewed by MAGA supporters as insufficiently loyal to the president. Landry has publicly endorsed her and dispatched his chief of staff to advise her campaign. Behind the scenes, he’s been urging major donors to financially support Letlow, according to six people familiar with his pressure campaign.

But his aggressive efforts are annoying Louisiana Republicans, who see him as overstepping to prop up a candidate who is struggling to dominate as the front-runner, given her relatively low name ID and the rise of another MAGA candidate: State Treasurer John Fleming.

Nearly a dozen GOP lawmakers, strategists and party leaders said in interviews that they’ve long been frustrated by his efforts to strong-arm the party over his legislative priorities and see the Senate race as the latest salvo.

“We're in some crazy territory where there are yes men all around the governor, and they don't do anything he doesn't want them to do, and they do everything he wants them to do,” said Kelby Daigle, St. Martin GOP parish chair, who supports Cassidy.

One prominent Louisiana businessperson, granted anonymity to speak freely, said Landry had asked dozens of executives on a conference call earlier this year to donate to Letlow. The person, a Cassidy supporter, promptly hung up.

“Governor Landry has gone all-in on Letlow and is pot committed at this point,” said a Louisiana Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak freely. “It’s a gamble that could pay off big or drain his political capital.”

The May 16 primary is likely headed to a run-off, and any combination of candidates may qualify. Polling shows Letlow with a slight lead over Fleming, with Cassidy in third.

Getting Letlow to the finish line would be a huge boost for Landry in the eyes of the White House, which has set its sights on ousting Cassidy, who angered the MAGA base with his 2021 impeachment vote against the president. Still, the governor may not be the most compelling messenger himself: He’s facing sinking approval ratings in Louisiana, dropping to 43 percent in March, down from 58 percent the prior year. And his reputation as a highly transactional governor is exhausting other Republican leaders.

“All this is him thinking that he can rig certain outcomes as a toady for the President,” said another GOP operative, who is unaffiliated with any of the Senate campaigns. The problem for Landry, the Republican said, is “people in Louisiana are fiercely independent. They don't want to be told what to do.”

Landry and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

"This narrative is absurd,” said Katherine Thordahl, Letlow campaign spokesperson. “Governor Landry is a friend and an ally, but he does not run Congresswoman Julia Letlow’s campaign. This is yet another desperate attempt by Rep. Letlow’s opponents to muddy the waters because they are losing this race.”

Letlow was first elected to the House to fill the seat of her former husband, who died from Covid in 2020, days before being sworn in. She’s the first Republican woman to serve in Congress in Louisiana. And she has earned the backing of both Trump and the Make America Healthy Again movement, whose PAC has pledged $1 million in support, despite Cassidy’s attempts to paint her as inadequately conservative for previously supporting diversity initiatives in higher education.

Her strongest supporter is Landry, a close ally of the White House who has moved further onto the national stage since becoming governor in 2024. Trump named him special envoy to Greenland last year, and he was one of the first Republican governors to welcome federal agents into their states when the U.S. Border Patrol was dispatched to New Orleans.

But in Louisiana, Republicans say Landry has created a culture of fear, with frequent comparisons to Huey Long, the former governor and populist political boss. Few are willing to speak out against him. “Often people in his own party get punished more than the Democrats,” said state Rep. Aimee Freeman, a Democrat.

Landry is known to bulldoze Republicans in the state legislature to get his priorities through — and readily punish detractors by wielding his line-item veto. Last year, he killed 16 spending projects in districts held by GOP lawmakers who voted against his top legislative priority.

In another display of power, he chose to delay the state’s House races from May 16 to mid-July following the Supreme Court’s rejection of Louisiana’s congressional map, sending the election system into chaos.

“This is unchecked power,” said Daigle, the GOP parish chair, of Landry’s decision to suspend House elections, which occurred after more than 42,000 ballots were cast. “We are in what I would say is some dangerous territory here, constitutionally speaking.”

Landry’s GOP detractors in the state say the Senate race is just another example of Landry sharply wielding his bully pulpit, from his push to get big donors to back Letlow to blasting Cassidy at any opportunity. 

Landry was behind the decision in 2024 to change the state’s electoral system, which used to combine all candidates into a single primary that any voter could participate in. The state now uses closed partisan primaries, which was seen as laying the groundwork for defeating Cassidy, given his unpopularity with the base. Cassidy must now win over those voters, who turn out in droves in primaries, without being able to rely on votes from Democrats and others who have padded his numbers in the past.

Cassidy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Letlow could use the boost: Her war chest amounts to less than a quarter of Cassidy’s cash on hand. But her opponents have seized on Landry’s involvement. Cassidy filed an FEC complaint accusing Landry’s top political fundraiser of campaign finance violations while approaching donors on behalf of Letlow. And Fleming has accused Landry of being behind millions in negative advertisements going after his record on immigration and opposition to carbon sequestration, an issue that he has campaigned heavily on. Landry and Courtney Guastella, his top fundraiser, have not addressed the allegations publicly and didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Thordahl, the Letlow spokesperson, said that Landry "asked Courtney to help his friend Julia Letlow because he knows she will stand with President Trump and fight for Louisiana. Courtney does not work for and is not an agent of the Letlow campaign."

Fleming, in an interview, said that voters “are just not buying” the attacks against him, citing his standing in the race. He and Landry have clashed over his Senate run, and Fleming has accused the governor of blocking his attempts to reach out to the White House to speak with Trump about his campaign.

Fleming has also accused the Letlow campaign of dangling a job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get him out of the race. The Letlow campaign has denied that allegation.

“So it just goes to show you really how desperate they are to try to get her elected,” he said.

And Landry maintains some defenders in the Louisiana GOP. State Sen. Alan Seabaugh said he doesn’t begrudge Landry for wielding his influence over the party to affect the outcome of the Senate race — or to veto bills as he pleases.

“He's the governor. That is his authority,” he said. “Why Letlow? He desperately doesn't want Bill Cassidy to get reelected.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed reporting.

© Evan Vucci/AP Photo

President Donald Trump’s power as the GOP’s kingmaker faces a major test with this month's primaries. So far, he's on rocky footing.

His revenge tour kicks off Tuesday in Indiana, as he tries to oust eight Republican state legislators who blocked his redistricting effort there. Then it moves on to Louisiana and Kentucky, where he’s backing challengers to two longtime enemies, Sen. Bill Cassidy and Rep. Thomas Massie, who he’s been itching to unseat for years. Trump has also selected his favorite candidates in the crowded GOP primaries for Alabama Senate and Georgia governor.

But his picks have struggled to dominate their fields, with most holding only narrow leads in polling and some failing to pull far ahead in fundraising. In Indiana, even a few allies of the president are tempering expectations of a full eight-lawmaker sweep.

The results will reveal how effective the president’s political operation is at turning out Republicans when Trump is not on the ballot, and how motivated MAGA is to go along with his ongoing retribution campaign. It’s also a potent expression of his power ahead of the likely lame-duck phase of his presidency.

Some Republicans — even those involved in the races — say the shaky standing of Trump’s preferred candidates suggests that his ability to move his base en masse is beginning to slip. MAGA, they note, may be developing a mind of its own as the party begins to look beyond the Trump era.

“He’s hit his max power and now you’re seeing the backside of that power curve,” said former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent target of Trump’s wrath who retired from Congress amid intense backlash for his 2021 vote to impeach the president and a new congressional map that would have left him in a member-on-member primary. “This will be his last competitive election cycle that will have any impact on him. And I think the base is starting to think into the future.”

Trump has a long history of unseating his congressional opponents, backing primary challengers to his critics and wielding his social media platform and his official bully pulpit to create such politically hostile conditions that many of his adversaries simply retire. Republican candidates have long jockeyed — and continue to trip over themselves — for his stamp of approval, hoping not to end up on the wrong side of his anger.

“The Trump endorsement is the most powerful and influential endorsement in the history of American politics,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle. “President Trump’s sterling record with his endorsements speaks for itself.”

Still, he’s produced a very mixed track record in contested races. Trump’s candidates have felled some of his biggest foes in GOP primaries, including former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and other Republicans who voted to impeach the president in his first term. But he’s also suffered some high-profile losses; he failed to oust Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and has watched several of his picks fall short in congressional races over the years, including Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama and scandal-plagued Rep. Madison Cawthorn in North Carolina.

Success will be even trickier this cycle: The May contests come as he continues an unpopular war in Iran that’s causing voters pain at the gas pump, as people sour on his economic and immigration agenda and as his approval ratings continue to sink.

“The [Trump] endorsement just isn't moving voters. It just isn't,” said a GOP operative working on the Alabama Senate race who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “When you've endorsed more than 800 people in 10 years, the potency of an individual endorsement wanes.”

May 5: Indiana

As the redistricting wars become a defining element of the midterms, Tuesday’s election will illuminate the president’s ability to maintain his grip on the Republican coalition.

While the White House and its allies have deployed the full force of its political operation against eight Indiana legislators — spending nearly $10 million across the races — they’re beginning to downplay the likelihood they will sweep all of them. Critics of the revenge effort say the strategy has been scattered and undisciplined.

How many incumbents survive will be an important piece of evidence predicting how the rest of May will go for the White House.

“We've tried to be helpful, as we always are, with our colleagues that are incumbents right now and will continue to be,” Rodric Bray, Indiana’s Senate President Pro Tempore who led the charge against Trump’s redistricting push, told POLITICO. “The challenge, of course, is that money matters in politics. When $9 million is spent, that has a huge impact, and we'll see what the result is.”

May 16: Louisiana

Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow is struggling to dominate the polls in her primary challenge to unseat Cassidy, who earned MAGA’s ire for voting to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2021. The latest Emerson College poll shows Letlow locked in a close three-way race, with her at 27 percent, State Treasurer John Fleming at 28 percent and Cassidy at 21 percent. Nearly 1 in 4 likely GOP primary voters are undecided.

Letlow entered the race at Trump’s urging. She boasts endorsements from Louisiana’s GOP Gov. Jeff Landry and national groups like the Make America Healthy Again PAC, which has promised $1 million in support like distributing mailers — a needed financial boost given her middling war chest compared with Cassidy’s.

But Trump has not sent the calvary for Letlow, withholding his own war chest and not making any trips to Louisiana on her behalf. The president recently doubled down on his campaign against Cassidy, telling GOP primary voters to kick the incumbent “OUT OF OFFICE” — but Trump notably did not name-drop Letlow or urge voters to back her.

May 19: Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia

Trump faces two very different tests of his influence in Kentucky, where he is simultaneously boosting Rep. Andy Barr as retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell’s successor and pushing to oust a longtime thorn in his side in Massie.

The president waded in late for Barr, endorsing the representative less than three weeks before the primary while also offering one of his two rivals, businessman Nate Morris, a job in his administration — a move that could help propel Barr past former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

But it is Massie’s 4th District race that may prove more troublesome for Trump. The president finally fronted a challenger to the renegade Republican after Massie voted against the party’s signature tax-and-spending package last year, and Trump’s allies have now poured over $10 million into sinking the incumbent.

So far, Massie has withstood the onslaught. He leads his rival, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, in polling, fundraising and name ID. One recent survey showed half of likely voters in his deep-red district with a libertarian bent preferred an independent-minded lawmaker, compared to 37 percent who wanted a strong Trump supporter.

Massie, who threads that needle by saying he’s with Trump “91 percent of the time,” argues that supporting him and the president aren’t “mutually exclusive things.” And he thinks the Trump-directed flood of outside money against him has its limits.

“If outside billionaires spend millions of dollars, they can change somebody’s profile,” Massie said in a recent interview. “But I think what they’re going to find out is that my brand is established well enough … that [they] can persuade some of the people, but they’re not going to be able to persuade enough of them.”

The president isn’t being driven by revenge in Alabama. But even there, his chosen candidate is battling to break through a crowded GOP primary field for Senate: The Trump-backed Rep. Barry Moore has a slight lead in public polling, while Attorney General Steve Marshall, who has been in office for nearly a decade, is holding his own.

Meanwhile in Georgia, Trump’s backing of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones’ gubernatorial run is a rebuke of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who rose to national prominence by defying the president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and is himself running for governor.

Still, Trump’s endorsement has its limits: Rick Jackson, a health care executive, has a slight lead over Jones in most polls for the GOP primary as he also makes a play for the MAGA base. He’s been pummelling the lieutenant governor with millions spent on attack ads.

“If any other candidate had received that amount of negative, they would be polling within the margin of error of zero,” said a Georgia-based Republican strategist who is unaffiliated with any candidate and was granted anonymity to speak openly. “When you're looking at the reasons why [Jones] is now in a toss-up race, I would say the President's endorsement is by far the top reason why.”

As both Jackson and Jones compete for the same slice of voters, some Republicans see Jones’ inability to dominate the race as evidence of Trump’s waning influence.

“It's not just Donald Trump — Georgia candidates historically have not benefited very much from endorsements from out-of-state celebrities,” said Jason Shepherd, former Cobb County GOP Chair.

May 26: Texas run-off

After Sen. John Cornyn finished ahead of Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas’ March primary, Republicans in Washington were on standby for Trump’s expected endorsement. It never came.

Perhaps in the clearest example of MAGA beginning to make decisions without Trump’s explicit approval, Texas Republicans have rallied around the scandal-plagued Paxton. Polling now shows that a Trump endorsement for Cornyn, at this point, likely wouldn’t sway voters significantly — and Paxton would maintain his edge.

GOP Texas consultant Vinny Minchillo that if Trump does decide to weigh in, he “will have to sell this to the faithful and tell them exactly what to do. Especially if he endorses Cornyn.”

Trump’s endorsement still matters, he said, but “less so with each day that passes.”

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s abrupt decision to postpone the state’s House primaries just days before voting was scheduled to begin has sent Republican officials scrambling.

Local election heads are convening open meetings to educate voters about the change, which Landry triggered immediately after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that its map was unconstitutional, blowing a hole in the Voting Rights Act. That’s giving Republicans the narrowest of windows to gerrymander one or two new seats before the 2026 midterms — and is leaving candidates guessing where they might be running.

Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed late Thursday challenging Landry’s ability to issue the sweeping emergency executive order threatens to further upend Louisiana’s election season. And the move only suspended the House races — meaning the rest of the primaries will continue on as scheduled, including the hotly contested Senate race, whether voters realize it or not.

“You have to move mountains to change the map to a constitutional one, and obviously shift the election,” said John Fleming, a Republican and former House Freedom Caucus member running for Senate. "It's going to be tough.”

Matt Gromlich, a Democrat running in Louisiana’s 4th District, said he has had to pause his two-week early voting plan, and is considering taking legal action against the state. “It is completely anti-Democratic to cancel an election that has already begun,” he said.

As one Louisiana Republican strategist working on a House race, granted anonymity to speak freely about the fallout, put it: “It is an unmitigated shit show fever dream.”

Altogether, the chaos in Louisiana over the last few days underscores how the latest chapter of the redistricting wars will be defined by a complicated legal and political battle as both red and blue states race to draw new maps.

Landry on Thursday delayed House elections until at least mid-July, saying it was necessary to comply with the court’s ruling. All other races will proceed as normal, with early voting beginning on Saturday. Absentee ballots have already been sent out. But the governor’s decision means tremendous burdens will be placed on local election officials, placing significant administrative costs on the state and sowing confusion among voters.

“Imagine being a voter in Louisiana right now,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan nonprofit. “Imagine having looked at who you might want to vote for, educating yourself on the process, and all of that is thrown up in the air. Every voter in Louisiana right now doesn't know whether this election is going to go on or not.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is facing off against Fleming and Rep. Julia Letlow in a contentious, close Senate GOP primary, called Landry’s decision to proceed with other races as scheduled “disappointing.”

“Now, it’s up to all of us to help people understand what’s happening and make sure voters know how to cast their votes over the next two weeks,” Cassidy said in a statement.

Louisiana had already changed its election process this year by throwing out its jungle primary for a closed primary process to give parties more control over their nominees. Now, with the House primaries on hold, some Republicans are tossing around returning to the open primary system just for those races.

“It's crazy and it's confusing,” said Bryan Kelley, the Winn Parish registrar, who said he has been informing the community about the change and posting information flyers in voting locations. “Whatever the legislature and the legal people decide, we’ll figure out how to make it work in practice so that people can voice their opinions.”

“Everybody just take a deep breath, be calm and just wait and see how that plays out,” he said.

Democrats are warning that Louisiana previews how other GOP states will approach the midterms, given the last-minute opportunity to reshape their maps and scramble election timelines.

“What is happening in Louisiana right now is both a redistricting power grab and a dry run for authoritarian election subversion this fall,” said voting rights attorney Marc Elias.

Before the Court’s ruling, Louisiana Republicans were planning to draw out Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields from his district, shifting the delegation to consist of five Republicans and one Democrat. Now, Republicans are considering being even more aggressive. At least one map has been submitted to be reviewed by the state legislature that would create lines giving the GOP an edge in all six districts, though some of those seats would still likely be in play for Democrats. At risk is the elimination of all majority-minority districts in Louisiana, a state with a population that is one-third Black.

“I believe the district lines should be and will be drawn based on shared interests and regional commonalities,” said GOP Rep. Thomas Pressly. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that happens.”

In the meantime, House candidates are stuck in limbo, stretching their campaign cash further than expected and extending some brutal match-ups, like in Louisiana’s 5th District where seven Republicans are competing to replace Letlow as she runs for Senate.

At a press conference with the Congressional Black Caucus following the Court’s decision, Fields acknowledged that Louisiana GOP state lawmakers are targeting his district. “If you tell me that I got to jump a certain height, I could probably do that,” he said. “Tell me [if] I got to run a certain distance, I could probably do that too. But if you tell me I have to be white to serve in Congress from Louisiana, I can’t do nothing about that.”

Alec Hernández contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled Marc Elias' name.

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© Win McNamee/Getty Images

Louisiana suspended its House primaries Thursday after the Supreme Court struck down its current map.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order delaying the House races until July 15 — “or until such time as determined by the legislature.” The elections had been scheduled for May 16, with a June 27 run-off date.

Early voting is expected to begin Saturday, and officials clarified that all other contests, including the state’s contentious GOP Senate primary, will proceed as normal.

In a statement, the governor said using the current maps would “undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters.”

“This executive order ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the Legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map,” he added.

Landry on Wednesday had told House Republican candidates he was planning to suspend the elections, according to a person familiar with the conversations, granted anonymity to share private details. Landry’s decision was first reported by the Washington Post.

The governor told candidates in phone calls that he would make the delay official on Friday and mentioned potentially using emergency executive power to pause the elections, according to the person.

It’s a legally risky gambit on a very tight timeline. The state legislature is in recess until next week.

President Donald Trump on Thursday celebrated state officials’ decision to swiftly reconfigure Louisiana’s map — the latest success in his longtime push to redistrict Republican-led states in his party’s favor, which began in Texas last year.

“Thank you to the Great Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, for his leadership on the very important Callais case, and for moving so quickly to fix the Unconstitutionality of Louisiana’s Congressional Maps,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform. “He has shown tremendous Vision, Strength, and Leadership. Thank you Jeff, keep up the GREAT work!”

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Thursday that he supported delaying his home state’s primary elections following the Supreme Court’s order.

“The governor has no choice but to suspend it,” Johnson said. “The court has ruled our map unconstitutional.” In lieu of another round of primaries, Johnson suggested the state should instead hold an all-party “jungle” election in November, with a run-off in December.

“All states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully, and I think they should do it before the midterms,” he added.

The Supreme Court’s decision to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has set off a scramble across various southern Republican-led states, with top candidates and party chairs from Georgia to Tennessee calling for special sessions to dismantle majority-minority districts. Still, it will be difficult for the party to push through more maps ahead of the midterms.

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© Getty Images

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn boasts a significantly larger war chest than his primary opponent, putting the embattled incumbent in a stronger financial position ahead of the May runoff.

Cornyn ended the first quarter of the year with more than $8 million in cash on hand, compared with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s $2.6 million in the bank, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The Cornyn-Paxton face-off has grown nasty and highly personal as Republicans grow uneasy about beating James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee who raised an extraordinary $27 million last quarter and has about $9.9 million cash on hand. President Donald Trump has so far declined to endorse in the race, despite teasing a pick for several weeks.

Cornyn’s joint fundraising committees comprised the vast majority of his roughly $9 million fundraising haul. Paxton reported raising $2.2 million.

© Francis Chung/POLITICO

In North Carolina, former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper continues to far outraise Republican Michael Whatley, growing a massive cash disparity in one of the most closely watched Senate races this year.

Cooper raised $13.8 million to Whatley’s $5 million in the first quarter of the year, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission. That encompasses both the run-up to and aftermath of their effectively uncontested primaries in early March.

Cooper entered the second quarter with $18.5 million in cash on hand, while Whatley reported having more than $2.5 million in the bank.

North Carolina is a top target for Democrats. Cooper, the swing state’s most recent governor, draws on his broad name ID to pull in a sizable fundraising haul. Most polling shows him with a double-digit lead over Whatley.

National Republicans are planning to give Whatley, the former RNC chair, a major boost. Senate Leadership Fund has pledged $71 million to the Senate race.

© Matt Kelley/AP

Democrats running for the Senate posted some massive fundraising hauls in the first quarter.

The most striking number so far came from Texas. James Talarico brought in an eye-popping $27 million over the past three months, his campaign announced Wednesday morning ahead of today’s Federal Election Commission deadline, including $10 million since he won his March 3 primary.

Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff raised more than $14 million in the first quarter, according to his campaign. In North Carolina, former Gov. Roy Cooper raised $13.8 million. In Alaska, former Rep. Mary Peltola brought in $8.9 million, while former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $12.5 million in his comeback bid.

The hauls, several of which set records in their respective states, underscore how Democrats are feeling increasingly bullish about their ability to flip the Senate. While Democrats still face an uphill climb due to the red lean of many states on the Senate map, President Donald Trump’s tanking approval ratings and the unpopularity of the ongoing war in Iran has the party feeling optimistic ahead of the midterms.

Democrats facing competitive primaries did not report as strong numbers, as donors split among several candidates. In Michigan, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow brought in $3 million, slightly ahead of Abdul El-Sayed’s $2.2 million. Rep. Haley Stevens, the third candidate in the race, has not yet revealed her fundraising numbers ahead of the FEC deadline on Wednesday. Iowa’s two Democratic candidates, state Rep. Josh Turek and state Sen. Zach Wahls, each raised $1.1 million in the past quarter.

© Eric Gay/AP

When President Donald Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow against Sen. Bill Cassidy, many thought she had a clear path to the upper chamber.

But three months after Trump pushed Letlow into the field, the race stands as a tight three-way contest between her, Cassidy and State Treasurer John Fleming, with all of them appearing to have a real chance to make the June runoff.

That has some Louisiana Republicans reconsidering whether Cassidy could survive in spite of his breaks with the president, including his 2021 vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, and his low polling numbers compared to Letlow and Fleming. Others are wondering if Letlow might end up locked in a runoff with Fleming that could prove much more challenging to her chances.

She has been massively outspent by Cassidy on the airwaves, still has low name ID compared to her opponents, and faces in Fleming another candidate with MAGA appeal and his own network of support. That’s making it harder for her to capitalize on Trump’s endorsement and rally the base behind her as she runs her first statewide campaign under a compressed timeline.

The outcome will be a test for Trump, whose meddling in the Louisiana Senate race may reveal the power of his endorsement at a time when his approval is at an all time low — as well as the viability of his efforts to seek vengeance against Republicans who cross him.

"The Trump endorsement has not had a close-out move. Cassidy was ready for her,” said GOP state Rep. Mike Bayham, who has not publicly supported any candidate yet. “They defined her before she introduced herself.”

Public polling gives a muddied picture of the primary, with polls from late March showing Letlow holding a narrow lead. A recent memo from Letlow’s campaign highlights an independent poll showing her leading with 29 percent, followed by Fleming at nearly 24 percent and Cassidy at nearly 20 percent. It also includes potential runoff scenarios showing her leading Cassidy 50 percent to 24 percent and in a statistical dead heat with Fleming in a head-to-head matchup.

“We’re in the middle of a dogfight,” said Mark Harris, a Cassidy aide. “Everyone's expectation is that she would shoot to a large lead and that we'd all be running from behind. But frankly I think they just weren't ready for this race.”

Letlow’s campaign claims that she has the most momentum in the race. She’s been endorsed by the Jefferson Parish Republican Executive Committee, one of the largest GOP groups in the state, and has the backing of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who has clashed with Cassidy and made the unusual move of selecting her over a Republican incumbent.

“We are talking about an incumbent who is underwater,” said a Letlow campaign aide. “Julia is surging. Her lead continues to grow the more the people learn that she's endorsed by the President.”

Trump and his allies haven’t stepped in much for Letlow beyond his initial endorsement — at least not yet. The Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-aligned Make America Healthy Again PAC has pledged to spend $1 million to boost Letlow and oust Cassidy, who has been openly skeptical of the Health secretary. But Louisiana Republicans are still waiting to see if the president’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., will spend any of the $300 million cash it has on hand.

MAGA Inc. has been tightlipped about its midterm spending plans so far and whether it will toss money to Letlow for the primary or runoff.

A MAGA Inc. PAC spokesperson and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Cassidy, boosted by a massive war chest, has been outspending Letlow for weeks. His campaign has combined with the Louisiana Freedom Fund, an outside group backing the senator, to pour more than $14 million into the race on ads, most of them attacks against Letlow. Letlow’s campaign and outside groups have combined to spend just $4.6 million, according to the tracking service AdImpact. Federal Election Commission fundraising reports next week will reveal her fundraising capabilities and if she'll be able to keep pace with Cassidy’s haul.

Letlow’s ads have almost exclusively focused on her endorsement from Trump, rather than attacks on Cassidy. But he’s gone hard after her.

In recent days, Cassidy’s campaign has highlighted a video of Letlow praising diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives while interviewing for a job as president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe in 2020. They’re also hammering her for trading stocks of defense contractors amid the war in Iran.

In response to Cassidy’s DEI attacks, Letlow has pointed to his support for Biden’s economic stimulus package that included equity provisions to help underserved schools and businesses impacted by the pandemic.

Letlow told a local news outlet in March that DEI initiatives at the university had been “presented to us as something that would help students achieve the American dream,” but that she realized that the diversity push was “hijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination.”

“Cassidy's problem in this race is that he's trying to make it an ideological race. The problem with that framing is that he has spent the past four years trying to undermine the president,” the Letlow aide said, referencing Cassidy’s initial refusal to support Trump’s third presidential bid and call for Trump to drop out after the FBI raided Mar-A-Lago in an investigation of his handling of classified documents.

Part of Letlow’s challenge is that she hails from a rural district in north Louisiana far from the population hubs of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Her district is more culturally aligned with the deep South and starkly different from the Catholic, Cajun and Creole influence throughout the southern half of the state.

“People haven't met her. She's almost invisible as a candidate,” said East Baton Rouge Parish Chair Woody Jenkins, who has not decided who he supports but used to work for Fleming in the Treasurer's office.

“When you're just meeting someone new in politics, and you hear all these bad things, you might have a first impression, but you tend to start having second thoughts,” he added. “And he's just relentless in it.”

And then there’s the Fleming factor.

“The two runoff spots are wide open,” said Matt Kay, Caddo Parish GOP chair, who described himself as an “anybody but Cassidy voter.” Kay said he was initially leaning toward Letlow, but after he saw her comments in support of DEI, he became interested in Fleming, who he sees as “more in touch with conservative voters.”

Fleming has largely self-funded his campaign, which launched last year. One of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus, he’s made inroads with Republican voters, especially in rural communities, with his stark opposition to carbon capture, which he says is a dangerous process that risks water contamination, costs taxpayers and violates property rights.

Both Fleming and Letlow have been aggressively attacking Cassidy for his impeachment vote, calling it a deep betrayal of MAGA and disqualification for the Senate. Louisiana is conducting closed primaries for the first time this year, a change that Fleming thinks will benefit conservatives like him.

“Number one, you have a mistrust of Senator Cassidy amongst Republican based voters,” said John Couvillon, a pollster who works on behalf of Fleming. “Number two, since he does have a relatively Republican voting record, that doesn't get him any great affections from Democrats either. So he's kind of the proverbial man without a political country.”

But some Republicans no longer feel that Cassidy’s vote in 2021 to convict Trump should be disqualifying, and they’re reluctant to relinquish his leadership positions to a freshman senator. They also point out that Cassidy, despite expressing concerns about Kennedy’s rejection of some vaccines, ultimately voted for his confirmation, along with the rest of the Trump Cabinet.

“I don't believe his vote to convict President Trump should be the reason we ought to oust him,” said Kelby Daigle, chair of the St. Martin Parish GOP. “I think it's silly. We should move on. It's old news.”

Andrew Howard contributed to this report. 

CORRECTION: The poll mentioned in Letlow's campaign memo is an independent survey.
This article has been updated to mention that Jenkins once worked in Fleming's office.

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© Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

GRAPEVINE, TEXAS — Joseph Bolick feels betrayed by President Donald Trump. And it’s because of the war in Iran.

The 30-year-old veteran served in Iraq and Afghanistan and voted for Trump in 2024. But at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering this week he sported a hat emblazoned with “America First” — a slogan Trump championed during his campaign, along with the promise not to start new wars in foreign countries.

“He’s lied about everything,” said Bolick. “If you go into a war where there’s no end game, how is it going to end? There’s no clear objective.”

Bolick is part of a cohort of young MAGA loyalists who are increasingly frustrated with Trump over the war in Iran. While Trump’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran has rallied war hawks and his older supporters, it has alienated many of the young men who swung toward the GOP in 2024. That split is resonating among not only the rank and file, but also conservative media influencers and some corners of the White House.

The generational divide was on stark display at CPAC, the annual conservative base-rallying gathering, where some young MAGA loyalists expressed deep frustration and even anger at the Trump administration’s choice to reignite conflict in the Middle East. One month into the war, Trump’s shaky ground with young men threatens to fracture an already-fragile GOP coalition ahead of a hostile midterm in November.

At the conference in north Texas, some attendees carried around Iranian flags, pledging loyalty to the U.S. mission overseas, while others donned America First hats and preached about the need for anti-interventionism.

“Trump and Republicans in general are going to have major issues in the midterms, in 2028, if we can’t wrap this up in a relatively quick amount of time,” said 21-year-old Andrew Belcher, president of the Ohio College Republicans. He added that Trump is doing “relatively poorly” with hyper online young men who are influenced heavily by media figures like Tucker Carlson and other isolationists in the GOP.

A POLITICO poll this month found that Trump voters largely continue to back him. But men who self-identified as “MAGA Republicans” and voted for Trump in 2024 are deeply split by generation over their trust in the president and their view of the war, especially if the number of U.S. casualties rises.

The contrast was striking, even with the larger margins of error that come from the smaller sample sizes: More than 70 percent of those over 35 believe Trump has a plan, compared with 49 percent of those under 35. A 66 percent majority of older MAGA men are willing to sacrifice American lives in order for the U.S. to achieve its goals in Iran, compared with less than half of younger MAGA men who say the same. And the younger men are significantly less likely to say the war is aligned with MAGA principles and in the interests of American people.

Some of the most prominent MAGA voices are opposed to the Iran war, like Carlson and Megyn Kelly, along with influential figures like Joe Rogan, who holds tremendous sway with young men. There’s even growing consternation among younger, more-right wing White House staffers, said one person familiar with the dynamics who was granted anonymity to discuss them.

“They're very frustrated. They didn't love the war to start with, and since it began, the constantly contradictory messaging from the president himself, is just brutal, brutal for staff to deal with and making their life really hard,” the person said. “He puts his people in a really tough position, especially people who are public-facing."

“What matters most to the American people – including young men – is having a Commander-in-Chief who takes decisive action to eliminate threats and keep them safe, which is exactly what President Trump is doing with the ongoing successful Operation Epic Fury,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle.

Part of CPAC’s intent, a hallmark grassroots gathering that has been held for more than 50 years, is to hype up conservatives, a particularly important mission for party leaders in critical election years. If Republicans want to prevent Democrats from flipping the House this midterm cycle, they need to ensure they don't lose any gains they made with key parts of their coalition in 2024, namely young men.

“We need you,” said former RNC chair Michael Whatley, who is running for Senate in North Carolina. “We need every conservative, every Republican, every patriot across this country to focus on two things: get out the vote and protect the ballot.”

Mercedes Schlapp, senior fellow for the CPAC Foundation, opened Thursday’s session by pleading with conservatives to remain united. “We cannot divide from within,” she cautioned attendees.

But interviews with a dozen young men at CPAC revealed broad concern that Trump is imperiling the U.S. economy, which has seen spiking gas and fuel prices caused by the war.

“A lot of the young generation feels that there’s just not a lot of hope for the economy,” said a 30-year old attendee who was granted anonymity to speak freely about party dynamics.

Onstage and in hallway conversations, older attendees celebrated Trump for ending what they called a 47-year conflict in Iran, marked by the death of Iran’s supreme leader.

A panel featuring Iranian women speaking about human rights abuses was met with loud cheers from the audience. Scores of mostly older conservatives milled about wearing shirts with the image of exiled Iran Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who is set to speak at the conference on Saturday.

“I believe President Trump’s shock and awe is what they needed,” said Lawrence Ligas, a 63-year-old conservative Chicago activist who was pardoned by Trump for charges related to the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Young MAGA is causing this divide because they’re concerned about being drafted.”

Multiple speakers on stage both directly and indirectly roasted online influencers for their opposition to the war. Conservative political commentator Josh Hammer blasted Carlson and Kelly in particular as “doomsayers.”

In his speech, former Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz told the audience that “dissent and disagreement has to be allowed. Tucker Carlson isn't going anywhere.” Gaetz, who resigned in 2024 after being briefly nominated by Trump for attorney general, then warned about the risks of military occupation in Iran.

"A ground invasion of Iran will make our country poorer and less safe,” the 43-year-old said. “It will mean higher gas prices, higher food prices. And I'm not sure if we would end up killing more terrorists than we would create."

Megan Messerly contributed to this report.

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