Five and a half years ago after he voted to convict President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was sent packing by Republican voters as he ran for re-election.

Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming topped Cassidy in Saturday’s GOP primary, according to The Associated Press.

With no candidate cracking 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming will advance to next month’s runoff for the Republican nomination. And Cassidy becomes the first elected Republican senator to lose renomination since Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012

While he wasn’t on the ballot, Trump is a winner, as the primary in the solidly red state was the latest test of his endorsements in GOP nomination and of the president’s immense grip over the Republican Party.

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Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana fist bumps a supporter during a campaign stop at a gun retailer and firing range in Baton Rouge on May 15, 2026, the eve of the state’s Senate primary. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

The Louisiana primary was held a week and a half after Indiana’s primary, where Trump-backed challengers ousted five sitting Republican state senators who last December teamed up with Democrats to defeat the president’s push for congressional redistricting in the GOP-dominated midwestern state.

Letlow was backed by Trump even before she entered the race in January.

“Not only did he encourage me to get into this race, but also to have his complete and total endorsement has been, wow, the honor of a lifetime,” Letlow told Fox News Digital on the eve of the primary.

Trump’s endorsement in the nomination race weighed heavily in a state he carried by 22 points in his 2024 election victory.

“It’s the most powerful endorsement in the world,” Letlow said, adding that Louisiana Republicans “are huge fans of the president.”

 Letlow was also backed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana, a top Trump ally.

Republican Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana, a Republican Senate candidate, speaks with Fox News Digital on the eve of the state’s primary, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on May 15, 2026. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

After cruising to re-election six years ago, Cassidy was one of only seven Senate Republicans who voted in early 2021 to convict Trump after he was impeached by the House for his role in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters who aimed to upend congressional certification of former President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

But since the start of Trump’s second term, Cassidy has been supportive of the president’s agenda and his nominees, including voting to approve Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement were out for revenge.

That’s because Cassidy, a doctor, has been a skeptic of Kennedy’s push to reform the nation’s health policies, including Kennedy’s efforts to cut back on vaccine recommendations.

And Kennedy allies blamed Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, for helping sink the surgeon general nomination of Casey Means, a close Kennedy ally and top MAHA advocate, after Cassidy did not bring it to a committee vote.

Meanwhile, Trump blasted the senator as a “very disloyal person” and on the eve of the primary, the president took to social media to praise Letlow as a “Highly Respected America First Congresswoman.”

Cassidy highlighted his record over two terms in the Senate in delivering for Louisiana, which is one of the nation’s poorest states. And he’s showcased his support for Louisiana’s large oil and gas industry, which accounts for roughly 15% of the state’s workforce.

“When people ask things such as, can you work with President Trump, I point out that he has signed into law four bills that I wrote or negotiated,” the senator said in a Fox News Digital interview on Friday. “We continue to work together, by the way.”

And Cassidy touted that he’s “a conservative senator who delivers.”

Cassidy and an allied super PAC dished out more than $20 million on ads, according to AdImpact, a national ad tracking firm. That total was more than Letlow and Fleming, combined, spent.

Some of those ads knocked Letlow over her past support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs during her tenure at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Cassidy argued that Republican voters are “concerned about her shifting position on DEI. She was all in for DEI.”

Defending her record, Letlow told Fox News Digital that “back in 2020 whenever DEI was introduced to us, we had no idea what it was back then, and I quickly witnessed it. I was in higher education at the time. I quickly witnessed the left completely hijack it, turn it into this Marxist leftist indoctrination of our children. And so, when I got to Congress for the last five years, I’ve been fighting against it.

Letlow also faced scrutiny from her rivals over her failure to disclose over 200 personal stock and bond trades within the mandated 45-day reporting deadline for members of Congress.

She said it “was a reporting error on my financial advisor’s part. And once I realized that that had happened, I quickly remedied it. It has never happened since.”

And Letlow charged that the criticism of her from Cassidy and Fleming over DEI and stock trading was “all baseless attacks, desperate attacks.”

Letlow won her congressional seat in 2021, after her husband, Luke Letlow, died six days after being sworn into the U.S. House after his 2020 election victory for the seat she now holds.

Fleming, who served as a White House deputy chief of staff during Trump’s first term, argued that he was the most conservative candidate in the GOP Senate primary.

‘They see me clearly MAGA,” Fleming told Fox News Digital, as he referred to Louisiana Republicans.  “I served in his entire first administration at various capacities. I was one of the first congressmen that endorsed him in 2016.”

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Meanwhile, Fleming claimed that Letlow was “not the prototype for a Trump endorsement. She’s much more like a Democrat.”

The winner of the Republican runoff will be considered the clear favorite in the general election to keep the Senate seat in Republican hands.

Alex Saab, a 54-year-old Colombian businessman and close ally of captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was reportedly deported after his February arrest in a joint U.S.-Venezuelan operation.

The development comes less than three years after former President Joe Biden pardoned and released Saab in a controversial 2023 prisoner swap.

The high-profile arrest highlights a new level of cooperation between U.S. authorities and Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez.

MADURO ALLY ALEX SAAB ARRESTED IN JOINT US-VENEZUELAN OPERATION, OFFICIAL SAYS

Venezuela’s then-President Nicolas Maduro speaks to supporters next to Colombian-born businessman Alex Saab during a rally in Caracas on Jan. 23, 2024. (Gabriela Oraa/AFP)

Following Maduro’s capture in a January U.S. military raid, Rodríguez stripped Saab of his cabinet position and his role as the main conduit for foreign investments, according to a report from The Associated Press.

If returned to U.S. custody, Saab could become a crucial star witness against Maduro, who is currently awaiting trial on drug charges in Manhattan.

Court hearings previously revealed that Saab held secret meetings with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for years, helping them identify corruption within Maduro’s camp.

VENEZUELA ORDERS NATIONWIDE MANHUNT FOR SUPPORTERS AFTER MADURO’S ARREST BY US FORCES

Businessman Alex Saab is seen at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 20, 2023. (Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu)

Described by U.S. officials as Maduro’s “bag man,” Saab was previously detained in 2020 on bribery charges, with U.S. officials alleging he siphoned $350 million out of Venezuela, according to the AP.

While Biden’s 2023 pardon was focused on a specific 2019 indictment over unbuilt low-income housing, Saab still faces active federal investigations over alleged bribery conspiracies involving Venezuelan food import contracts.

The Venezuelan immigration authority confirmed a “Colombian citizen” was being sent away due to U.S. criminal investigations, but avoided confirmation of his destination to bypass Venezuelan laws prohibiting the extradition of its own nationals, the AP reported.

Colombian businessman Alex Saab is seen in Caracas, Venezuela, on Dec. 21, 2023. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)

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The U.S. Department of Justice and Saab’s lawyer, Neil Schuster, did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has asked the U.S. Navy to help with the investigation into the sinking of a fishing vessel earlier this year that left seven crew members dead, the Navy confirmed to Fox News Digital.

Healey and State Sen. Bruce Tarr sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy this week asking for help retrieving a video recorder and a hard drive from the wreck of the Lily Jean in January, which lies more than 300 feet down in the Atlantic about 25 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, that could determine the cause of the sinking, WFXT-TV reported.

“The Office of the Secretary of the Navy is in receipt of the correspondence,” a spokesperson from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy told Fox News Digital on Saturday. “A response is being prepared and will be transmitted directly to the Governor’s office.”

The governor also hopes to retrieve the remaining six bodies from the 72-foot boat, which sank on Jan. 30.

COAST GUARD IDENTIFIES 7 VICTIMS ON BOARD GLOUCESTER COMMERCIAL FISHING BOAT THAT SANK OFF MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has asked the U.S. Navy to help with the investigation into the sinking of a fishing vessel earlier this year that left seven crew members dead. (Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images; Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

The body of Lily Jean Captain Accursio “Gus” Sanfilippo is the only one that has been recovered.

The six others who died in the sinking include crew member Paul Beal Jr.; crew member John Rousanidis; crew member Freeman Short; crew member Sean Therrien; and NOAA fisheries observer Jada Samitt.

“What caused it is not as important as retrieving the crew,” Donna Short, the mother of Freeman Short, a 31-year-old who was planning a wedding, told WFXT.

She said she spoke to him a few days before he went out on the doomed trip.

“He told me, ‘Hey mom, you know I’m going to be going,’ and I told him I loved him,” she said, adding that recovering his body is a “matter of laying him to rest where his legacy began next to both of his grandfathers, who are veterans.”

A placard honoring the crew of the Lily Jean is displayed at the Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial in Gloucester, Mass., on Jan. 31, 2026. (Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe)

DESPERATE SEARCH FOR TWO MEN AS FISHING BOAT FOUND EMPTY 70 MILES OFF FLORIDA COAST

The National Transportation Safety Board and the U.S. Coast Guard are involved in an ongoing investigation into the sinking.

The Coast Guard’s search for the missing crew members was suspended on Jan. 31, a day after the sinking, and the NTSB said it doesn’t do recoveries, according to WFXT.

When the Lily Jean sank, Coast Guard watchstanders received an emergency position indicating a radio beacon (EPIRB) alert at about 6:50 a.m. registered to the vessel.

USCG crews attempted to contact the boat, and after getting no response, issued an urgent marine information broadcast (UMIB), according to officials.

Multiple aircraft, cutters and small boats searched 1,047 square miles over 24 hours, finding debris near the location where the EPIRB was activated, along with the captain’s body and an unoccupied life raft that had been deployed.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey talks with U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick after a press conference in Gloucester on Jan. 31, 2026. The Coast Guard called off the search for the fishing vessel Lily Jean, which had seven crew members. (Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)

Search and rescue mission coordinators, on-scene commanders and the Coast Guard determined on Jan. 31 all reasonable search efforts for the missing crew members had been exhausted.

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“The purpose of a Coast Guard investigation is to identify measures that can improve the safety of life and property at sea, not to assign civil or criminal blame,” the Coast Guard wrote in a statement at the time.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Healey’s office for comment.

Fox News’ Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.