On Friday we had that Hayride post about U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy and his touting of a Morning Consult poll which puts him at an absurd 69 percent approval rating among Louisiana Republicans.

In that poll, we noted, Cassidy’s “strong approval” is only 27 percent. Let’s keep that number in mind.

Because over the weekend, we saw an email message that State Treasurer John Fleming, who’s running against Cassidy, sent out to various Republicans seeking “endorsements.” Whether those are for Republican State Central Committee members, elected officials or just ordinary voters who are being incentivized to opt in to Fleming’s fundraising email lists doesn’t particularly matter; what matters is what appeared at the bottom of the message…

Others will say this is a classic “push-poll,” and that’s not a wholly unreasonable assessment. But what struck us about this is that 27 percent.

Did you notice that Cassidy was at 27 percent in the primary ballot test on that poll and then he was 27 percent in the runoff ballot test against Fleming?

As Pedro Serrano might say, “Is very bad.”

It tells you Cassidy has about 27 percent actual support from Republican voters in Louisiana right now. The 69 percent approval rating he’s claiming is essentially the two-thirds of the voters in Louisiana who are thankful not to have a John Bel Edwards or Cleo Fields in that seat; they aren’t enamored with Cassidy by any means.

Does the poll tell you Fleming is the guy who ultimately takes him down? Well, those are pretty good numbers for Fleming, for sure, and a 13-point advantage over Cassidy in the runoff test ballot tells you that Fleming definitely wins a head-to-head race.

At least as of now. Cassidy is boasting of some $11 million in the bank, and it’s only a matter of time when this race gets started that his campaign will unload that war chest into negative ads attacking Fleming.

The problem for Cassidy is that going after Fleming with radioactive attacks in a primary race doesn’t solve the problem of that 27 percent. What it does, maybe, is displace the 73 percent.

Neither Blake Miguez nor Eric Skrmetta are in the race yet. We expect Miguez will be in it soon; he recently lost his father to cancer and he’s mourning that loss. Skrmetta is being discussed for a couple of jobs in the Trump administration, so we don’t know what his status will ultimately be.

But assuming one or both make the race and Cassidy decides to bomb Fleming with attack ads, doing so might just turn Miguez or Skrmetta into the nemesis taking down the incumbent.

We never believed the Morning Consult poll. The Couvillon poll for Fleming looks a lot more like reality, even if Cassidy’s people do say it’s a push-poll.

And this race is a long way off, but not so far away that we can’t make some pretty solid assumptions about how it’s going to go.