Politics > Republicans

Thomas Massie and Bill Cassidy Lost. MAGA Won. Bigly.

The decline of the RINO reverberates throughout the land.

Joseph Ford Cotto | May 28, 2026

This spring, two high-profile Republican incumbents on Capitol Hill learned a brutal truth. Disloyalty to Donald J. Trump carries an unforgiving electoral price, and the old guard's time on its beloved throne has run out.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana stood as the textbook embodiment of the pre-Trump GOP establishment. A physician by training with deep roots in state politics, he built his career on fiscal conservatism, policy expertise, bipartisanship on issues like infrastructure, and a steady focus on delivering federal resources while operating within institutional norms.

Elected to the Senate in 2014, Cassidy represented the measured, consensus-oriented conservatism that defined the GOP before MAGA populism reshaped it. He prioritized governance and traditional principles over high-stakes confrontation or movement loyalty.

That approach clashed with the new Republican reality.

On Feb. 13, 2021, during Trump's second impeachment trial, Cassidy voted to convict the Donald on charges of incitement of insurrection tied to Jan. 6. One of only seven Republican senators to break ranks, he dubiously justified the choice by citing his oath to the Constitution and the need to place no man above it.

The vote rightly branded him as disloyal in the eyes of millions of GOP voters who saw it as betrayal at crunch time. Trump, of course, did not forget.

In the 2026 Louisiana Republican Senate primary, he endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow against Cassidy, calling out the impeachment vote as an act of legendary disloyalty. Cassidy finished a distant third with roughly 25 percent of the vote, behind Letlow and Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming. He failed to reach the runoff, becoming the first GOP senator in more than a decade to lose renomination.

The message rang loud and clear: even long-serving incumbents who crossed Trump faced total rejection from the Republican base.

On the House side, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky offered a different but equally doomed challenge. Massie cast himself as a purist populist voice, more hardcore than mainstream MAGA on key fronts. He pushed isolationist foreign policy, railed against the........

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