Bill Cassidy just lost his Louisiana Senate primary — badly. He didn’t even come in second. The last of the Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump has now paid the same price as the rest of them: political irrelevance, one way or another.

Let’s set the scene. It’s January 2021. Donald Trump has just left the White House. January 6th happened three weeks ago. And seven Republican senators — people who’d spent years calling themselves Trump’s allies — decided this was their moment. The moment to be on the “right side of history.” To finally break free. To vote to impeach a president from their own party and move on, because Donald Trump, they all quietly agreed, was never coming back.

Blame it on him. Convict him. Forget him. That was the plan.

Bill Cassidy — two-term senator from Louisiana, one of those seven — went on CNN afterward and laughed about Trump’s political future with Jake Tapper. He said Trump probably couldn’t win a general election. He seemed relieved. Comfortable. Like a man who’d made a smart bet and was already spending the winnings.

“Bill never thought this day was going to come. None of them did. That was the whole point.”

On Saturday, Cassidy finished third in his own primary. Third. Behind a political newcomer — Julia Letlow, Trump’s endorsed candidate — and another challenger. A sitting, two-term United States senator, third place in his home state. That hasn’t happened since 2012. Trump posted on Truth Social within hours: “It’s nice to see that Bill Cassidy’s political career is now over.”

He wasn’t wrong. And it wasn’t just Cassidy.

Mitt Romney Retired — in disgrace

Ben Sasse Retired early

Pat Toomey Retired

Richard Burr Retired

Susan Collins Facing primary threat

Lisa Murkowski On the clock — 2028

Bill Cassidy Lost primary, May 2026

What made the impeachment vote so politically fatal wasn’t the vote itself. It’s what it revealed about how badly these senators had misjudged the moment. They voted to convict because they genuinely believed Trump’s coalition would dissolve without him. That his voters were a one-time phenomenon. That the Republican Party would quietly return to its pre-2016 shape, like a spring uncoiling.

They were spectacularly wrong.

And there’s another part of this story that still doesn’t get enough attention. Before anyone marched anywhere on January 6th, Trump told the crowd — on camera, on the record — to go “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol. Those words are in the transcript. They’ve always been in the transcript. But it was easier for politicians like Cassidy and Romney to skip past them. Pelosi herself later admitted she bore some responsibility for not calling in the National Guard. None of that fit the narrative they needed, so it got left out.

That’s what really bothered a lot of Republican voters — not that their senators disagreed with Trump, but that they seemed to be working from a selective version of events. And voters have long memories about that kind of thing, even when politicians don’t expect them to.

Susan Collins is still in the Senate — for now — facing a primary challenger in Maine who, by any normal political standard, shouldn’t be competitive. Lisa Murkowski isn’t up until 2028, but she’s watching all of this very carefully from Juneau. The math doesn’t get easier with time.

The lesson from Saturday isn’t complicated. In today’s Republican Party, crossing Trump has a price. And the bill, however long it takes to arrive, always comes due.