Cassidy’s Uphill Reelection Race Is Getting Steeper

President Donald Trump pulled the plug Thursday on his nominee for surgeon general, but he’s already using the setback to help secure a win he covets: the defeat of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy in his primary two weeks from now.

The withdrawal of Casey Means’ nomination by the White House was a big disappointment for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again followers, who describe a book Means wrote promoting healthy eating and exercise as the “MAHA bible.” But Trump’s gambit to pin the blame for Means’ demise on Cassidy aims to both keep the MAHA movement in the GOP fold for the midterms and help exorcise from Congress an opponent he and Kennedy share.

As chair of the Senate’s health committee, Cassidy has repeatedly criticized Kennedy’s effort to downsize the vaccine schedule. And Cassidy has played a role now in preventing two of Kennedy’s favored health department nominees, Means along with his first pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, former Florida GOP Rep. Dave Weldon, from taking office. Even though Cassidy is a fellow Republican, Trump remains angry over Cassidy’s vote in 2021 to convict him of inciting the riot at the Capitol that Jan. 6.

The attacks on Cassidy Thursday were the most personal yet from Trump, Kennedy and MAHA movement figures.

Cassidy was “disloyal” and “stood in the way” of Means’ confirmation, Trump said in explaining why he’d had to withdraw her nomination. Kennedy said Cassidy “once again did the dirty work for entrenched interests seeking to stall the MAHA movement” and White House adviser Calley Means, Casey’s brother, said Cassidy was the “ringleader of the operation” that brought her down.

Cassidy implied he was being used as a scapegoat.

“I can promise you there are multiple people on the committee who had decided to vote no,” he said at the Capitol Thursday. “The White House has known for a while she didn’t have the votes to pass.”

POLITICO previously reported that Means said it was Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s decision to vote no that led the White House to pull her. Means said she also believed Cassidy and Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins were against her.

But the recriminations from the administration have focused solely on Cassidy.

“Cassidy just told all those MAHA moms that they don't matter to him, and their quest to end the childhood chronic disease epidemic doesn't matter to him,” said an administration official who insisted on anonymity to describe the decision to pull Means’ nomination.

The effort to shift the blame for Means’ demise to Cassidy comes as the MAHA movement grows increasingly vocal about disappointments with the White House’s policy on pesticides, including a rally on the Supreme Court steps on Monday where top MAHA influencers called the president out.

In April, MAHA advocates attended a meeting in the Oval Office with senior officials to recommend course corrections that would mitigate tensions with the coalition — and heavily encouraged senior officials and the president to get Means confirmed. Means was present at that meeting.

MAHA declared victory this week when the House voted to remove controversial pesticide labeling language from the farm bill after intense MAHA lobbying. MAHA activists argued the provisions would have protected pesticide makers from lawsuits brought by consumers alleging they weren’t informed about health risks associated with the products.

The White House and Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services would not comment on the record about why their leaders were only targeting Cassidy over Means’ failed nomination.

But a White House official granted anonymity to share internal deliberations said Cassidy deserved the blame. If Cassidy had backed her, the other senators could have been convinced, the official argued.

Asked what he thought about the president calling him “disloyal,” Cassidy said he’s “loyal to the United States of America and I’m going to do my darndest and work with the president whenever we’re working for the best of the United States of America.”

Cassidy is an easy political target for the White House: He faces a May 16 primary in which a MAHA group and the president have endorsed one of his opponents, Rep. Julia Letlow, in a race where the seat will remain safely Republican either way.

Emerson College released a poll Thursday of 500 likely primary voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points, that found Cassidy is bringing up the rear in a three-way race with Letlow and former Trump aide and GOP Rep. John Fleming. The poll has Fleming leading with 28 percent, Letlow in second with 27 percent, and Cassidy at 21 percent. Two will advance to a runoff if neither gets a majority.

Cassidy spoke to reporters Thursday as he was heading out of the Senate to the airport to continue campaigning in Louisiana.

“The people of Louisiana are going to vote for someone who has delivered for Louisiana,” he said, adding that he has done “far more than any of my opponents.”

Some leaders in the MAHA movement amplified the White House message on Means.

Alex Clark, who hosts a health and wellness podcast produced by the conservative political group Turning Point USA, called him “a parasite” for blocking Means.

“Casey literally wrote the MAHA Bible,” Clark said in a text message, referring to Means’ book, Good Energy. “To not have her as Surgeon General and the main spokesperson for this movement is troubling and sends a worrisome message.”

Still, Clark pointed out that the failure to confirm Means reflects poorly on the administration’s relationship with MAHA, too, calling it “another significant blow to MAHA voters after the disastrous glyphosate executive order.”

Calley Means in a post to X predicted Cassidy would lose his reelection race “and immediately work for the pharmaceutical industry who funded his political career,” casting him as “an inconsequential figure who tried to stop the important and disruptive MAHA conversation President Trump and RFK unleashed.”

But the president and his aides castigating Cassidy just before his primary aren’t necessarily Cassidy’s death knell, said Louisiana political consultant Mary-Patricia Wray, who has worked with Republicans and Democrats and is a senior adviser to Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, a Republican.

She pointed to Fleming’s strength in the recent polling as evidence that Trump’s influence may be waning.

“Enthusiasm for Donald Trump and just doing whatever he tells you, as a MAGA voter in Louisiana, is wearing a little thin, thinner than it once was,” she said.