BATON ROUGE — U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow thanked Louisiana voters and President Donald Trump on Saturday for support that carried her into a runoff for a U.S. Senate seat from a deep-red state.

Letlow led among three major candidates but she failed to reach the 50 percent threshold necessary to avoid a June 27 runoff. State Treasurer John Fleming ran second and incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy was third.

Trump and others targeted Cassidy to punish him for his vote to convict the president following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

"His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!," Trump said following Cassidy's loss.

With each of Louisiana's 3,722 precincts reporting unofficial returns, Letlow had 45 percent of the vote, Fleming had 28 percent and Cassidy had 25 percent. Cassidy said he had called the others to concede.

“I’ve spoken with John and I’ve spoken with Julia to congratulate them both," Cassidy told his supporters. "This is not the result I necessarily wanted, but I feel great. I’ve been able to go across our great state for the last six months in the battle of the campaign, meeting people in our state who care about this state, and I feel great for the privilege.”

"Thank you for the privilege of representing the great state of Louisiana," Cassidy said.

Trump had endorsed Letlow, who gave up her safe U.S. House seat to challenge the two-term incumbent.

"Thank you, Louisiana. This is so exciting," Letlow told supporters in Baton Rouge. "Thank you to a very special man, the best president the country has ever had."

Fleming was a former deputy chief of staff to Trump in the president's first term, and also in the race was Mark Spencer of Belle Chasse, who billed himself as a "guns and Bible conservative."

The Democratic Party primary featured Nick Albares and Gary Crockett of New Orleans and Jamie Davis of Ferriday. Davis had 48 percent of the vote in unofficial returns while fewer than 400 votes separated the other two with 30 precincts still to be tallied. Whoever ended with more would meet Davis in a runoff — if Davis doesn't reach 50 percent plus 1. 

Saturday's election had featured races for each of the state's six U.S. House seats, but Gov. Jeff Landry canceled primaries after the U.S. Supreme Court said the state had improperly used race to draw up districts that matched the state's demographic makeup. Open primaries have been rescheduled for the House seats in November, with potential runoffs to follow.

But Saturday's contests featured a closed primary for Cassidy and the others, with the expectation that limiting balloting to the state's conservatives would harm Cassidy's re-election chances.

Letlow said her receiving 45 percent of the vote was quite an accomplishment considering the negative advertising targeting her.

Cassidy sought to paint Letlow as a liberal for her embracing diversity initiatives at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, where she sought the school presidency, Fleming said during the campaign that he was the only conservative in the race. Letlow's campaign messaging sought to introduce her to a statewide audience; both of her opponents have won statewide races previously.

Cassidy was hopeful that independents and "no party" voters would pull a Republican ballot and vote for him, or that Democrats would change their party affiliation and do the same.

Letlow's husband Luke had been elected to Congress in 2020 but died from COVID-19 before taking office. She won a special election in 2021 and won re-election twice.