Former Utah Sen. and one-time Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is mourning the political demise of Sen. Bill Cassidy — calling the Louisiana Republican’s stunning primary loss “a loss for the country.”
Cassidy became the first elected Republican senator in more than a decade to lose a renomination bid after getting knocked out of Louisiana’s GOP primary Saturday, ending a political career that had been dogged for years by one vote that many conservatives never forgot: his decision to convict President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“The Senate to now lose an exceptionally brilliant and creative mind, an MD who chairs healthcare, and a person of character,” Romney wrote Sunday on X. “Bill Cassidy’s departure is a loss for the country.”
But Trump had a very different reaction.
The president wasted little time celebrating Cassidy’s downfall on Truth Social, taking a victory lap after years of public feuding with the Louisiana senator.
“His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of a legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!” Trump wrote.
Cassidy’s defeat had long been viewed as a looming possibility in Republican circles. Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming finished ahead of Cassidy in Saturday’s contest and now advance to a June runoff after neither candidate secured a majority.
Sen. John Kennedy suggested nobody should be shocked by the outcome.
“Unless you’re your god’s perfect idiot, the result was predictable,” Kennedy said on Fox News. “Ground control to Major Tom. The polls have shown for well over a year that Sen. Cassidy was in trouble.”
He added that Trump’s endorsement of Letlow “was sort of the icing on the cake.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham framed Cassidy’s loss as a warning shot to Republicans who break with Trump.
“There’s no room in this party to destroy his agenda or to destroy him and his family as a Republican,” Graham said during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“If you align with Democrats to drive him out of office, like Cassidy did, you’re going to lose.”
Cassidy, however, used his concession speech to fire off what appeared to be a parting shot at Trump and the election challenges that followed 2020.
“When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to,” Cassidy told supporters. “You don’t pout, you don’t whine. You don’t claim the election was stolen. You don’t manufacture some excuse.”
For Romney, Cassidy’s exit marks the fading influence of one of the GOP’s shrinking anti-Trump bloc.
The relationship between Romney and Trump has been icy for nearly a decade. Romney sharply criticized Trump during the 2016 presidential race, briefly joined his orbit after the election during a highly publicized meeting over a possible Cabinet role, then became one of Trump’s fiercest Republican critics in the Senate.
Romney ultimately became the only Republican senator to vote to convict Trump during both impeachment proceedings — first over Ukraine and later over Jan. 6 — putting him on a collision course with Trump and many Republican voters.
Cassidy joined Romney in the second impeachment vote, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict. Now, a few years later, Republican voters in Louisiana appeared to deliver their own verdict.
