It only took about a minute for Sen. Bill Cassidy to get choked up earlier this month during a forum on dyslexia. Joined by parents who, like him, struggled to find educators trained to teach their children to read, the two-term Louisiana Republican fought back tears.
“It is painful,” he said, “and some of you have moved two to three times to find a school for your child.”
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His passion for the issue was one of the reasons he wanted to chair the education committee when Republicans took control of the Senate in 2024. That same year, he issued a report pointing to the nation’s sagging performance in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress and advocated for more phonics-based instruction. His staff is now working on a far-reaching literacy bill that would ensure federal funds are spent on the programs that follow the science of reading.
But Cassidy might not be in Congress to see the culmination of his efforts. In his race for re-election, he faces three primary challengers, including Rep. Julie Letlow, who, unlike Cassidy, has secured President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming and Mark Spencer, who calls himself a “guns and Bible conservative” are also on the ballot May 16, but the real race is between Cassidy, Fleming and Letlow. Polls show the vote could be close.
“This is a three-way race and anything can happen,” said Robert Hogan, a political scientist at Louisiana State University. It’s rare for an incumbent senator to lose in a primary. The last one was moderate Republican Richard Luger of Indiana in 2012. At this point, Hogan said, there’s no guarantee Cassidy will even get to a runoff.
The first sign that Cassidy’s bid for a third term was in trouble came when he voted in 2021 to convict the president of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 that year. “The country is more important than any one person,” he said in a brief statement at the time. As Trump eyed his return to the White House, Louisiana lawmakers in 2024 changed the election law so that only registered party members or those who are unaffiliated can vote in a party’s primary. Previously, open primaries allowed Cassidy to pick up support from voters on the left.
The move, Hogan said, was meant to squeeze out so-called RINOS, or Republicans-in-name-only. To MAGA Republicans, Bill Cassidy hasn’t been loyal enough.
Gov. Jeff Landry, who pushed for the election change, has complained that Cassidy supported “liberal Obama judges” and listened to “Never Trumpers.” While Cassidy, a physician, voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of Health and Human Services, he continues to express disagreement with Kennedy’s statements that cast doubt on vaccine safety.
“Life is lived forward, and so what I have to do is do my best to reassure the American people that vaccines are safe,” he told reporters last fall without answering whether he regretted voting in favor of the secretary’s nomination. The two clashed again over vaccine research last week when Kennedy testified before the committee. Those who support Kennedy’s positions on public health issues are backing Letlow.
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‘The same language’
On other issues, the incumbent continues to voice his allegiance to Trump’s agenda. He launched an investigation into Massachusetts over a policy allowing a trans female to compete on a girls’ track team. The president “signed an executive order to restore fairness for women and girls. I’m demanding that states comply,” he posted on X.
Following Trump’s State of the Union address in February, Cassidy listed all the ways he has “worked with President Trump.” But to Trump, it appears, the vote to impeach is all that matters.
“This administration is completely blinded by their need for retribution at any cost,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, who has been pushing for updating federal policy on literacy. Cassidy, she said, is “100% principally aligned” with what Education Secretary Linda McMahon wants to accomplish, but the administration “doesn’t think very strategically around those things.”
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Three years ago, Rodrigues didn’t consider Cassidy an ally.
He was among the five GOP senators in late 2022 who objected to her involvement in a parent council launched by former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. The organizations chosen to participate, they argued, were “liberal advocacy groups” out to “nationalize our education systems.”
But Rodrigues and Cassidy found common ground on solving the nation’s literacy crisis. He has greeted busloads of parents that the advocacy organization has brought to Capitol Hill over the years to share their stories.
“It was almost like he connected with his people,” she said, “because they all spoke the same language.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy greeted parents in April 2024 when the National Parents Union held a literacy event on Capitol Hill. (National Parents Union)
Letlow, first elected to the House in 2020, has also focused on parents’ concerns. Legislation she backed in 2023 aimed to give parents more say over curriculum and library materials, require schools to notify parents about violent incidents at schools and increase transparency into district budgets. The bill passed the House, but never received a vote in the Senate.
A former university administrator, Letlow supports Trump’s plan to shut down the Department of Education. But her stance on diversity, equity and inclusion before she entered politics gave Cassidy a reason to question whether she’s sufficiently loyal to Trump.
Conservative news outlets dug up a 2020 video of Letlow interviewing to be president of the University of Louisiana at Monroe in which she said it was “shameful” that the institution didn’t have more women faculty members. While she didn’t get the job, she said establishing a DEI office would have been one of her first moves.
Republican Rep. Julia Letlow joined former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, of California, to discuss the Parents Bill of Rights, a GOP bill that passed the House in 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
She has since backtracked, saying that DEI efforts were “hijacked by the radical left and turned into indoctrination.”
Fleming, a former Congressman and then Trump adviser, describes himself as a “proven MAGA conservative” who didn’t “cut and run” from the administration after Jan. 6.
The Louisiana Senate seat is considered safe for Republicans. Whoever emerges as the party’s nominee is expected to win the general election in November. But neither Letlow nor Fleming would be in line to chair the education committee.
If Cassidy loses and the GOP stays in control of the Senate, that job would likely go to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said David Cleary, a former Republican education staffer for the Senate and now a principal with The Group, a Washington lobbying firm.
Those with more seniority than her would be highly unlikely to give up their current leadership posts, Cleary said. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky chairs the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, if she wins re-election in November, “would never” leave her position as chair of the appropriations committee, he said.
Murkowski, considered a GOP moderate, opposes the president’s plan to shutter the Education Department. In March, she co-sponsored legislation with Cassidy to make it easier for students to find funds for college.
But the window to get a literacy bill passed could close if Cassidy doesn’t return to the Senate next year, said Rodrigues with the National Parents Union. “It’s going to be kind of back to the drawing board.”
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