{"id":793,"date":"2026-05-19T10:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=793"},"modified":"2026-05-19T10:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T10:05:00","slug":"republican-fights-to-survive-trumps-wrath-in-most-expensive-house-primary-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"Republican fights to survive Trump\u2019s wrath in most expensive House primary ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Massie is in a close race with Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein in Kentucky after repeatedly defying the president.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more A year after Trump fired a top ethics watchdog, there\u2019s still no leader<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) speaks to reporters after a debate in Lexington on May 4. (Jon Cherry\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman who has repeatedly crossed <\/b>President Donald Trump, is in the fight of his political life to beat back a Trump-endorsed <\/b>challenger in Tuesday\u2019s Kentucky primary.<\/p>\n

Massie\u2019s race<\/a> against farmer and former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein has become the most expensive U.S. House primary on record, with more than $32 million spent on ads. Trump allies and pro-Israel groups critical of Massie have spent big, testing the president\u2019s grip on the GOP base and ability to oust conservatives who defy him.<\/p>\n

Few Republicans in Congress have clashed more bitterly with Trump over the past year than Massie, who has bucked the GOP on key votes and \u2014 against Trump\u2019s wishes \u2014 led a bipartisan bill that forced the release of the government\u2019s full files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

A victory for Gallrein in Northern Kentucky\u2019s 4th district would send a warning to Republicans already loath to challenge Trump as he and <\/b>his allies flex their power in primaries.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Massie challenger Ed Gallrein speaks to reporters during the April 30 Kenton County Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner in Covington, Kentucky. (Jon Cherry\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Two weeks ago, Trump-endorsed candidates unseated <\/a>several GOP state lawmakers in Indiana <\/b>who rebuffed Trump\u2019s pressure to redraw the U.S. <\/b>House map there. And this past weekend in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R) became the first sitting senator to lose a primary<\/a> in almost a decade after voting to convict the president in his 2021 impeachment trial.<\/p>\n

Trump on Monday called Massie an \u201cobstructionist and a fool\u201d on social media, while his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, took the unusual step of campaigning with Gallrein and touting their shared military service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen President Trump needs backup, Massie wants to debate process,\u201d Hegseth said at the Monday rally. \u201cWhen the movement needs unity, especially at the biggest moments, Massie\u2019s willing to vote with Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie, a 55-year-old farmer first elected in 2012, has suggested that Hegseth and Trump\u2019s attention to the race shows his opposition is \u201cdesperate\u201d and \u201cpanicked.\u201d Republicans on both sides of the contest expect it to be close \u2014 setting up a suspense-filled end to one of the most dramatic primaries of 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cGallrein has Trump, and Massie has incumbency,\u201d said Tres Watson, a GOP strategist in Kentucky. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to beat an incumbent. \u2026 If Massie loses, it\u2019s a combination of Trump and just a 12-year compounding of picking up a couple of enemies here and a couple of enemies there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie <\/b>has frustrated House GOP leadership, breaking with the party on high-profile votes for which they needed near-unanimity among Republicans, including the president\u2019s signature tax-and-spending legislation, the \u201cOne Big Beautiful Bill Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has also long clashed with the pro-Israel wing of his party. Massie has opposed U.S. aid to Israel and was the only House Republican to vote against a resolution condemning antisemitism that he said went counter to the First Amendment. Super PACs affiliated with the Republican Jewish Coalition and the bipartisan American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are each spending more than $4 million on ads to defeat him, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s opposition has made this race the toughest of Massie\u2019s career. Trump recruited Gallrein to run against Massie, and top strategists on Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign launched a super PAC, MAGA KY, that has spent nearly $7 million on ads blasting Massie for voting against Trump\u2019s agenda in Congress and playing clips of Trump calling him a \u201creal loser.\u201d<\/p>

Read more The Nationals love collecting challenge coins so much they made their own<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the pro-Trump group\u2019s most recent ads suggests Massie is in a \u201cthrouple\u201d with liberal lawmakers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), using artificial intelligence to show Massie holding hands and dining with them.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Massie speaks alongside Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) and then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) during a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act outside the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 18, 2025. (Heather Diehl\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Massie brags that Trump\u2019s attacks have only helped him raise money.<\/p>\n

Massie and his allies have kept the spending war close with more than $13 million in ads, according to AdImpact, questioning Gallrein\u2019s pro-Trump credentials and highlighting Massie\u2019s areas of agreement with Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree with President Trump a whole lot more than I disagree with him,\u201d Massie says in one of his ads.<\/p>\n

The spending in Massie\u2019s race has surpassed the previous record for a House primary set in 2024, when Democrat George Latimer beat Rep. Jamaal Bowman in New York. Pro-Israel groups also spent heavily<\/a> in that race to oust the incumbent, a fierce critic of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Massie has tangled with Trump for years. In 2020, Trump said Massie should be thrown out of the GOP after the congressman delayed a $2 trillion bill responding to the coronavirus pandemic <\/b>and forced his colleagues <\/a>to return to Washington to pass the bill. But Trump did not back a challenger, and Massie won reelection easily.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Massie exits the studio after the Lexington debate. (Jon Cherry\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

This time, Trump has put his full force behind unseating Massie, declaring at a Kentucky rally that he just wanted \u201ca warm body\u201d to challenge the congressman.<\/p>\n

When Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) went to Kentucky to campaign with Massie last week, Trump suggested she could be next.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado\u2019s Fourth Congressional District?\u201d Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. (Boebert said she \u201cknew the risks\u201d of campaigning with her friend.)<\/p>\n

Massie\u2019s many disputes with Trump include his vocal criticism of the U.S. war with Iran. He criticized Trump\u2019s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last year as unconstitutional and this year cast the war as out of step with Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d promises.<\/p>\n

One of Massie\u2019s campaign ads alludes to the war\u2019s economic impacts. \u201cWe\u2019re all feeling it \u2014 gas over $4 a gallon,\u201d the congressman says next to a pump.<\/p>\n

Other Republicans have assailed Massie\u2019s opposition to the war. One ad from the Republican Jewish Coalition\u2019s super PAC says Massie \u201cstands with Iran and radical leftists in Congress.\u201d<\/p>

Read more Arsenal on brink of Premier League title with Man City needing to beat Bournemouth<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Massie is in a close race with Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein in Kentucky after repeatedly defying the president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nRepublican fights to survive Trump\u2019s wrath in most expensive House primary ever - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=793\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Republican fights to survive Trump\u2019s wrath in most expensive House primary ever - 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