For longer, Representative Thomas Massie boldly defied a strict rule of modern Republican politics—that opposing President Trump is starting the clock on your electoral career. “I’m not worried about losing,” he told me last summer inside the Capitol, as he explained to a group of reporters the strength of his support in his Kentucky district.
Massie had already angered Trump just a few months into the president’s second term, after clashing with him during the first. Massie voted against federal funding bills, criticized the president’s taxes, and will soon be one of the only Republicans in Congress to oppose Trump’s Good Bill Act, which the hawkish Massie saw as irresponsible. Trump blasted Massie and vowed to find a strong opponent to defeat his bid for an eighth term; early last summer, the president’s allies set up a political action committee to run ads attacking Massie in his district.
Still, Massie refused to fall into line. Over the next several months, he condemned Trump’s military approach, including his unilateral attacks on Iran, and helped lead a highly successful bipartisan effort to force the administration to release its files on disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Massie, a photographer to his fans and a useless fly to his detractors, was going his own way in Congress. Perhaps he believed he was uniquely positioned to withstand Trump-backed streaks. Or maybe he knew he was tired and had decided to commit on his own terms.
Either way, last night Massie suffered the same fate as many of Trump’s Republican critics: He lost his primary. In the end, Massie’s campaign against Ed Gallrein, a Navy SEAL whom the president had personally recruited to run, was not even close. Gallrein won by about 10 points, and Massie conceded shortly after the polls closed.
For months before the primary, Massie had held up his race as an important test case for the Trump era: If he could criticize the president and still win, his victory would embolden other Republicans to speak out and vote against Trump when they felt compelled to do so, softening his negative stance on the party. About a dozen House Republicans, he told me last month, then “will be more responsible to vote with their constituents rather than the party line.”
That prediction, however, seemed in doubt even before Massie’s defeat became clear, as Trump reasserted his dominance over the GOP elsewhere. Less than six months from the midterm elections, the president may be like disliked as he once had with the general public. But within the Republican Party, he remains the undisputed kingpin.
In Indiana earlier this month, Trump-backed opponents defeated five of seven Republicans seeking re-election to the state Senate after opposing the president’s push to pass a new congressional map. On Saturday in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy finished third in the Republican primary after Trump endorsed one of his rivals. (Cassidy had voted to impeach Trump during his second impeachment trial after the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.) Trump may have sealed the defeat of another GOP candidate, Sen. John Cornyn, yesterday by endorsing a primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was leading in the polls.
Kentucky’s Fourth District includes the suburbs of Cincinnati and Louisville and stretches east about 200 miles, near the West Virginia border. Massie had hoped that his base of young libertarian voters would turn out in sufficient numbers to overcome Gallrein’s strength among older Republicans who wanted a representative more loyal to Trump. In the past he had isolated his opponents with ease. But the money Trump and his allies put behind Gallrein dwarfed anything Massie had faced before. Pro-Israel groups, hostile to Massie because of his strong opposition to the Iran war and aid to the Jewish state, spent millions to defeat him. Massie used Trump’s attacks on him to raise more money for himself, and the total spent on both sides increased to $33 million, making the race. the most expensive basic house in American history.
Massie told reporters that his internal poll found that while most Republicans in his district still support Trump, the president’s support was weaker within the party than during his first term. (He also acknowledged that his stance on Iran was unpopular with primary voters in the district.) But while Massie never wavered from his criticism of Trump, he spent the final weeks of the campaign reminding his constituents that he sided with the president more than he opposed him. “I agree with President Trump almost all the time,” Massie said in one ad. In an April interview, Massie told me he was ready to serve in Trump’s Cabinet.
This effort to ease a long-running feud with the president seemed as good a sign as any that Massie knew he was in trouble. They were also not enough to save him. As the end approached, his joking indifference about his position began to give way to equality in the prospect of defeat. Last night, after the race was called early, Massie showed up for his concession speech before sunset in Kentucky. “I would have come out earlier,” he said, before seeking support for his opponent from pro-Israel donors, “but it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.” He appeared to have pain but few regrets, even as he joined the growing number of Republicans who have taken on Trump and failed.
