Bill Cassidy

On Saturday, we’ll get some data on how yet another Trump Tragedy will end. Recent polls put Bill Cassidy, the senator from Louisiana, in third place heading into the first round of the Republican primary here. It’s his first competitive race in a dozen years and the culmination of a zigzag of events that had him standing up President Trump, kissing up to Mr. Trump, being tossed aside by Mr. Trump, gaining no political advantage in any direction along the way, and undermining not just his positions as a politician but also — in what makes this tragedy more raw than most — his greatest accomplishments as a physician.

Mr. Cassidy may advance to a runoff in June, but few give him any chance of winning it. As James Carville summed up the events to me: “Bill Cassidy sold his soul to the devil, and he didn’t get anything for it.”

Mr. Cassidy has never had a high profile nationally or in Louisiana, despite being a senator for 11 years. He was a well-respected liver doctor at a charity hospital for about 25 years and set up a clinic in Baton Rouge to provide medical services to the uninsured. He began his political life to lobby on public health issues, first as a supporter of the Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco 22 years ago, before switching parties, citing the supposed demise of “conservative Democrats.” He won his first state seat in 2006 as a Republican.

Mr. Cassidy developed a reputation as a hard-working, smart, sometimes stiff policy wonk, which is about as natural in Louisiana as an igloo. We like big personalities, thick accents, backslapping and a bit of wicked fun. Mr. Cassidy doesn’t like to answer reporters’ questions about politics. He prefers discussing policies and programs, particularly those regarding health care; he has a pinnacle position as the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He still likes to be called Dr. Cassidy, not Senator Cassidy. Several New Orleanians reminded me of the most famous local assessment of Mr. Cassidy, from former Representative Cedric Richmond: “Dude is weird.”

Two votes have defined his career on the national stage. The first was as one of seven Republican senators to vote for the conviction of Donald Trump in the 2021 impeachment trial. Mr. Cassidy probably thought that in five years he would once again compete in a nonpartisan “jungle” primary against a divided field. In 2020, he had beaten his leading Democratic competitor by 40 points. And, anyway, Mr. Trump in 2021 seemed to be soon gone from public life.

But then the Louisiana Republican Party changed the rules such that only Republican (or “no party”) voters could vote in its Senate primary. And, of course, Mr. Trump did not disappear from public life. So Mr. Cassidy joined the long line of former Trump antagonists led by Marco Rubio and JD Vance in trying to ingratiate himself with Mr. Trump — most famously, with his vote last year to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services.

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