Trump's USA Midterm elections in the US

Trump defeats another enemy – Cassidy

Bill Cassidy, Republican senator for Louisiana, has been one of Donald Trump's harshest internal critics in recent years. Now he has been eliminated in the primary election ahead of the midterm elections in the fall, several media outlets report.

Bill Cassidy voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial that was held after the storming of the Capitol in 2021. In connection with the shootings in Minnesota last winter, he also criticized the president.

Two other Republicans are going to a decisive round in June: John Fleming, the state's financial manager, and Julia Letlow, the candidate Trump himself has highlighted.

“I want to thank a special man that you all know, the best president this country has ever had,” Letlow says.

Analysis: A key victory in Trump's revenge tour

Only two of the Republican senators who voted to impeach Donald Trump in 2021 have retained their posts, after Louisiana's Bill Cassidy now lost in the primary election.

"It shows that Senate Republicans are even more clearly consolidating behind President Trump and his agenda," writes Michael Gold in an analysis in the New York Times.

Politico's Liz Turner describes the result as a "key victory for Trump's revenge tour":

"The result is remarkable, Cassidy is the first senator, from either party, to lose his seat in the primary election since 2012."

CNN's Patrick Svitek notes that Trump is now targeting Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, another of his most vocal internal critics. On Truth Social, the president correctly writes that Massie is an “even worse insult to our nation” than Cassidy.