Cassidy could run for Guv and give Landry a scare

Instead, the Baton Rouge Republican could engage in a 2027 donnybrook for governor against incumbent Republican Jeff Landry.

The thinking goes like this: Cassidy has every reason to be frustrated as just one of 100 senators in Washington, D.C.’s political snake pit. He is by nature a problem-solving policy maven, not a partisan mudslinger. Why would he want another six years battling both the national, woke Left and the take-no-prisoners MAGA-ites on the Right, the latter of whom jump at every whim of a mercurial billionaire egotist, when Cassidy could instead be Numero Uno in his home state, successfully implementing creative reforms?

Most people would want to be a strong governor rather than a beleaguered senator.

The politics actually could work very well for Cassidy. He might have a better chance of defeating Landry than winning reelection to the Senate, although a loss in the latter is less likely than many people think.

The political pluses and minuses of each path are interesting….

If Cassidy runs for reelection to the Senate in what already is an 11-person primary, he is almost certain to find himself in a primary runoff. There, he will have two significant advantages but one massive disadvantage.

…. Advantage one: Cassidy can point to an unusually large number of policy victories: bills signed into law and amendments adopted, including one that essentially saves Louisiana’s Medicaid funding for the next few years.

Cassidy’s second, even bigger advantage is that he has financial resources both to publicize those victories and, if needed, to conduct blistering attacks on any Achilles’ heel his opponent might have.

That money, though, that makes Cassidy a threat to Landry. While state law says he can’t transfer federal campaign funds directly to a state campaign, courts have ruled that a candidate can transfer such money to a so-called independent super PAC. That super PAC, which could be run by a Cassidy loyalist, could carpet-bomb Landry (figuratively speaking) in a 2027 gubernatorial primary while Cassidy uses his own, official campaign to remind people of his proven, substantive, problem-solving record…. [The rest of the column is at this link.]