HEBRON, Ky.—Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) lost his Republican primary on May 19 to former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein.
President Donald Trump had endorsed Gallrein as part of his effort to get Massie removed from Congress.
Gallrein had tallied 54 percent of the votes compared to 45 percent for Massie when the Associated Press called the race at 7.54 p.m.
The race in Kentucky's 4th Congressional district was one of the nation’s most closely watched Republican primaries of the 2026 election cycle.
The district stretches from the Kentucky suburbs of Cincinnati across the Ohio River in northern Kentucky southward to the outskirts of Louisville, incorporating coal towns and rural villages in the Appalachian foothills.
In 2024, Massie won the primary with 75.9 percent of the vote and the general election, where he ran unopposed, with 99.6 percent support. Trump won the district by 35 points in 2024.
Trump and Massie have had a contentious political relationship for years.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress accelerated the CARES Act. Massie tried to get a recorded vote in the House, saying that a bill authorizing trillions in new spending and emergency authorizations should not be passed with a voice vote when only a fraction of the members were in attendance.
His stance ignited opposition from colleagues who wanted to act quickly. Trump publicly called for Massie’s expulsion from the Republican Party.
In 2022, however, Trump praised Massie, calling him a “Conservative Warrior” and a “first-rate Defender of the Constitution.”
They have clashed over multiple issues during the president’s second term.
In 2025, Massie voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, arguing that it increased the national debt.
An outspoken critic of the Iran war, Massie sponsored a War Powers Resolution in an attempt to require that the administration cease hostilities.
Massie cosponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law in November 2025 as a response to long-standing calls for full disclosure of government-held records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a May 17 Truth Social post, Trump said Massie “must be thrown out of office.”
The president criticized Massie as “the worst Republican congressman in history” and urged people in Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District to vote for Gallrein.
Trump described Gallrein as a “brave combat veteran” who knows the wisdom and courage required to defend our country, support our military and veterans, and ensure peace through strength.
An MIT grad and an engineer by trade, Massie has carved a niche as a fiscally conservative libertarian who adheres to the Constitution and does not hesitate to call for a non-interventionist version of Trump’s “America first” policy, with limited foreign aid and foreign wars. He describes himself as pro-life and pro-Second Amendment and a “true conservative,” calling for fiscal restraint as seen by the ticking debt clock on his lapel.
He often says that his voting record shows he is a conservative who does not compromise core principles even when his views conflict with those of other conservative colleagues in Congress and the president.
At a campaign rally in Florence, Kentucky, on May 16—where he was joined by Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—Massie said that Trump and his backers in Washington want every Republican “to go along, to get along” and added that Gallrein has said he will fully support Trump.
In multiple interviews, Massie has said that he votes with Republicans 90 percent or 91 percent of the time.
“When I don’t vote that way, it’s when I think my constituents are better served by a different vote,” Massie said.
Gallrein had said the race is a choice between loyalty to Trump’s America First platform and Massie’s obstructionism.
“Thomas Massie has become one of the biggest roadblocks to President Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda,” Gallrein said after receiving Trump’s backing. “President Trump endorsed me because Kentuckians deserve a congressman who will stand with our president, not against him.”
The district is “Trump country,” Gallrein said. Voters deserve a representative “who will serve as a reliable partner to the president rather than an obstacle,” he added.
Gallrein has accused Massie of having “Trump derangement syndrome” and said he is a “darling of the mainstream media.”
He added that he would “deliver results” and not “create friction.”
One day before the primary, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth campaigned for Gallrein at an event in Hebron, Kentucky.
Hosted by America First Works, a Trump-aligned nonprofit organization that advocates for the America First agenda, the rally was billed as a celebration of the “Great American Comeback.”
“I’m proud here to stand with Ed Gallrein, because he led warriors in combat,” Hegseth said at the gathering in Hebron.
“He led at the very highest levels of special operations. He served with distinction as a Navy SEAL, rose into leadership within the elite ranks of SEAL Team Six, one of the most demanding combat organizations on planet Earth.”
Hegseth repeatedly praised Trump and Gallrein in his speech, chastising Massie for not fully supporting the president.
“President Trump needs reinforcements, and that’s what war fighters do. They stand behind leaders and have their back,” Hegseth said.
“Too often, Thomas Massie has acted like his job is to stand apart from the movement that President Trump leads, instead of strengthening it. When President Trump needs backup, Massie wants to debate process,” Hegseth added.
Gallrein said in his remarks that military members “deserve a commander-in-chief who has their back and leaders they can trust. They have them in Donald Trump, and they have them in Pete Hegseth, don’t they?”
An array of pro-Israel groups and donors, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), poured millions into the race attacking Massie.
Federal Election Commission (FCC) data show that Gallrein’s campaign has raised around $3.16 million, including more than $63,000 in direct PAC donations from the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and the United Democracy Project, which is AIPAC’s super PAC.
Track AIPAC indicates that Gallrein’s campaign has received close to $11.8 million from independent expenditures.
Kentucky 4th PAC, Make Liberty Win, Defeating Communism PAC and other anti-Massie groups surpassed $10 million in independent expenditures, according to Decision Desk HQ.
Pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Kentucky poured more than $7 million into ousting Massie, Decision Desk HQ noted.
On May 18, Decision Desk HQ said on X, “Per FEC data, anti-Massie outside spending leads pro-Massie spending $15.5 mil to $10.3 mil."
Pro-Israel Opposition
On May 14, Massie introduced legislation that would require groups like AIPAC, a domestic lobby group that shares policy goals with Israeli interests but has no direct direction or funding from the Israeli government, to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.Massie's office says the Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity (AIPAC) Act, whose acronym mirrors AIPAC's, closes a loophole in the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) that allows “certain organizations to avoid registering as foreign agents despite lobbying on behalf of foreign interests.”
“Americans have a right to know when powerful lobbying organizations are advancing the interests of foreign governments in Congress,” Massie said, adding that the proposed measure “does not ban speech, restrict advocacy, or prohibit Americans from supporting foreign allies.”
“It simply ensures transparency. If an organization is heavily engaged in influencing U.S. policy in ways that principally benefit a foreign country, it should be required to register under FARA.”
Last week, Massie said on Tucker Carlson’s podcast that funds spent to oust him “didn’t come from regular people.” He claims that 95 percent of those funds “has come from the Israeli lobby”—groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC’s) United Democracy Project super PAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and the MAGA KY Super PAC, whose donors include figures such as billionaires Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson.
“Their position is more war, it’s more strife, it’s more bombs, it’s more foreign aid, and those are the things that I’ve been voting against,” Massie said.
Gallrein will now face Melissa Strange in November’s general election. The Cook Political Report rates the district as “solidly Republican.”