It seems like one of the least sellable political decisions going right now would be for a red-state senator to have voted for a post-presidential impeachment of Donald Trump. And that’s what Bill Cassidy has saddled himself with in advance of running for re-election in 2026.

The Hill noticed that fact in an article which ran yesterday…

Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) vote to impeach President-elect Trump could come back to haunt him ahead of his 2026 reelection bid.

Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump in 2021, and he has at times been vocally critical of the president-elect. Trump, in turn, has bashed him as a “A TOTAL FLAKE” and a “stiff.”

A Cassidy campaign spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that the senator is running for reelection, though he hasn’t made a formal announcement yet. Some Republicans already expect the Louisiana senator to face a primary challenge, as his vote and past remarks receive renewed scrutiny.

Our old pal Scott Wilfong, who can’t help turning up as the Louisiana Republican commentator every time a left-leaning news outlet needs a quote, says the obvious…

“It’s a major problem” for Cassidy, Republican political consultant Scott Wilfong said.

Wilfong said that around the state, he’s noticed Cassidy “is everywhere all the time” and has made “it a priority to deliver for the local governments.”

“Wherever he was four years ago, Bill Cassidy is at least 50 percent better off politically than he was then,” Wilfong said. “Is that enough to get through a Republican primary? I don’t know.”

And James Hartman, who occasionally posts here at The Hayride, also opines as to Cassidy’s viability…

“I still hear people taking Bill Cassidy’s name in vain over that impeachment vote, and to a lot of voters that’s going to be the single issue that defines him despite all the other good things he has done,” said James Hartman, a Republican consultant. “I think that’s going to be the biggest albatross around his neck. I don’t know that the Trump folks are going to forgive him even enough to stay out of it.”

Cassidy says it’s all copacetic, though…

“No. I mean, it is what it is, and I’ve done a good job for the state,” Cassidy told The Hill last week. “And good policy is good politics.”

“And if I have a challenger, I have a challenger. But I can’t stay up awake at night worried about that,” he said. “There’s a wonderful scripture I quoted earlier that ‘The day’s own troubles be sufficient for the day.’ And so, I got enough to worry about.”

The piece talks about the fact that Cassidy will have to fight through a Republican primary rather than the jungle primary Senate candidates have dealt with in previous cycles; this year’s congressional races were the last federal elections with jungle primaries in Louisiana.

And it throws out a few names everybody has heard – U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta and State Treasurer John Fleming, not to mention former congressman and Louisiana’s top political free agent Garret Graves, though Graves’ supporters in a GOP primary would probably be Cassidy’s; it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for him to run, especially if by some combination of Congressional action and Supreme Court precedent, Louisiana found itself redistricting Graves’ congressional seat back into existence.

Our take on this? Cassidy is at least a conditional dead man walking from the standpoint of holding that seat.

Conditional, in this respect: if he gets in a Republican primary with, say, Fleming, Higgins and Skrmetta, or even if some other conservatives get in on top of those guys, and none of them is able to stand head and shoulders above the others, Cassidy could very easily manage a first-place finish in the primary and then get a sacrificial lamb Democrat in the general election.

Could he lose the general? Probably not. There’s a lot of talk about somebody like John Bel Edwards running in that race – but at this point we’re by no means sure that Edwards could win a Democrat primary against a black candidate with a name, like a LaToya Cantrell or Ted James.

What’s going to have to happen is for the conservatives in the state to line up behind somebody, whether it’s Higgins or Fleming or Skrmetta or whoever, and then have that be the candidate who goes forward into the 2026 primary.

And it would not be a surprise at all for Cassidy’s people to find some conservative they can put into the race to siphon anti-Cassidy votes from whoever is their chief competitor. His re-election might depend on doing that.

In a head-to-head race, any of the conservatives will beat Cassidy. If they dilute the anti-Cassidy vote, he survives, runs as the Trumpiest Trump who ever Trumped in the general, and gets the grudging votes of the majority of the state’s voters who might hate Cassidy with a passion but will nevertheless under no circumstances vote for a Democrat.

It’s going to be an interesting race. Cassidy will be interesting to watch between now and the beginning of the 2026 cycle, because it’s almost guaranteed that he’ll do everything he can to make people believe that impeachment vote was a blip on the screen going forward.

And watching that, and seeing if the public lets him get away with it, will be fascinating.