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Republican senator casts Trump as election loser destined to lose 2024 nomination

Washington Examiner: A Republican senator described former President Donald Trump as an election loser who is not guaranteed to win the GOP's presidential nomination in 2024 if he decides to run.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of seven Republicans in the Senate who voted to convict Trump in connection to the Capitol riot, cut in with a dismissive answer when Axios co-founder Mike Allen posited that if Trump runs again he will have a winning ticket within the party.

"I don't know that," Cassidy intoned. "President Trump is the first president, on the Republican side at least, to lose the House, the Senate, and the presidency in four years. Elections are about winning."

The Louisiana Republican ventured further by saying he thinks Trump, who does poll well among Republicans looking ahead to 2024, might lose the GOP nomination contest.

“Well, if you want to win the presidency — and hopefully that's what voters are thinking about — I think he might," he said in the Axios on HBO interview.

Trump endorsed Louisiana's other U.S. senator, Bill Cassidy, for reelection in June. At the same time, he expressed contempt for Cassidy.

“Unlike Louisiana’s other senator, Bill Cassidy, who used my name in ads and all over the place in order to get re-elected, and then went ‘stupid,’ John Kennedy is the real deal — a brilliant and highly educated man who will never let you down,” Trump said.

Trump survived the Senate impeachment trial, the second one he faced, and has teased the idea of running for president again in 2024. However, he has not made any commitments.

Cassidy stressed that he was censured by his state's own Republican Party for voting to convict Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection. "I slept very well that night," he quipped.

The senator said he voted to convict Trump because he swore “an oath to support and defend the Constitution. And when there was a pattern of behavior that culminated as it did on January the 6th — and we've had revelations since — that just led me to that decision.” >>>