In the span of 96 hours, Donald Trump finished off two Republican incumbents who thought defying him was a survivable proposition.

On Saturday, two-term Sen. Bill Cassidy finished third in Louisiana’s GOP Senate primary, becoming the first elected sitting senator denied renomination since Richard Lugar in 2012. Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a June 27 runoff. Cassidy’s sin was voting to convict Trump after Jan. 6. He spent five years trying to outrun it. He couldn’t.

On Tuesday, seven-term Rep. Thomas Massie lost the Republican primary in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District to Trump-endorsed Navy veteran Ed Gallrein, in what became the most expensive U.S. House primary in history. Massie’s sin was bigger than Cassidy’s. He didn’t just defy Trump on the tax bill and the Epstein files. He turned his reelection into a referendum against Israel, telling voters his race was about whether “a foreign country” was buying his seat. Trump buried him anyway. Maybe because of it.

Massie couldn’t even concede gracefully. Taking the stage to acknowledge defeat, he opened with a “joke”: “I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent to concede and it took a while to find him in Tel Aviv.” Seven terms in Congress, $25 million spent against him, and his closing message to the voters who rejected him was one more crack about Jews. It tells you everything about why he lost.

Two weeks earlier in Ohio, YouTube provocateur Casey Putsch — who built his primary challenge against Trump-endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy on attacks against Ramaswamy’s Indian heritage, criticism of Republican support for Israel, and Epstein-files grievance — got flattened. That’s three in three weeks.

Florida Republicans should be paying close attention. So should one Florida Republican in particular.

James Fishback, the longshot gubernatorial candidate running against Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds, spent the final hours of Massie’s campaign publicly cheering him on, warning that “foreign money is trying to steal” Massie’s election. It was the same antisemitic dog whistle Massie himself had been blowing for weeks. Voters in northern Kentucky didn’t buy it. Voters in Louisiana didn’t buy it from Cassidy’s lane. Voters in Ohio didn’t buy it from Putsch.

Trump allies noticed. Within hours of Massie’s loss, MAGA activist Laura Loomer posted: “Fishback and Bilzerian, you’re going to lose your elections next. Tick tock!” The Trump orbit has Fishback on a list. The list has not been kind lately.

Fishback has built his campaign on the same brew of anti-Israel grievance, groyper-adjacent racism, and conspiracy theory that the Republican electorate just rejected in three states. He polls at 4% in Emerson’s most recent survey and 9% in the latest Fabrizio, Lee survey. Donalds is at 54%. When Republican voters learn Donalds has Trump’s endorsement, that number swells to 76%.

Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and former House Speaker Paul Renner aren’t running Fishback’s campaign. They’re just running a stupid one. Both polled in the single digits — Collins at 7%, Renner at 2% — and somehow watched the president take down three Republican incumbents this month without drawing the obvious conclusion: there is no path through a Trump-endorsed nominee in 2026. Cassidy had a national profile, two terms, and Senate GOP leadership behind him. He lost. Massie had seven terms and a small fortune. He lost. Collins and Renner have neither. What exactly is the theory of the case?

Donalds, meanwhile, has been one of the most outspoken pro-Israel voices in the House, has a long record of voting to combat antisemitism, and carries the Trump endorsement that just steamrolled three Republicans in three weeks.

The math is not complicated. Trump’s endorsement is the single most decisive force in a Republican primary today. Add a clear posture against the antisemitism creeping into corners of the right, and you have the formula that just consumed Cassidy, Massie, and Putsch.

Fishback’s supporters keep insisting he’s tapping into something real. They might be right. They’re just on the wrong end of it.

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Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review were performed by Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team.

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