Trump-backed candidate Gallrein defeats Rep. Massie in Kentucky primary

President Donald Trump demonstrated his dominance over the Republican Party on Tuesday when voters in northern Kentucky rejected maverick congressman Thomas Massie in favor of the president’s hand-picked challenger.

Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL and farmer recruited into the race by Trump, defeated the seven-term incumbent in a primary election in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District. Trump allies framed the contest as a test of whether dissent could still exist inside today’s Republican Party.

The election took place as voters in five other states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho — went to the polls on Tuesday to decide nominees for November’s general election. It was the biggest primary night of the year so far. Earlier Tuesday, Trump endorsed scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a Senate primary runoff against incumbent John Cornyn, infuriating some in his party.

In Kentucky, Massie now joins the ranks of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney and other elected Republicans who were either ousted or decided to retire because of their party’s capitulation to Trump.

Over the weekend, Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, lost a primary in Louisiana after the president backed challenger Julia Letlow.

Massie, a libertarian-minded conservative, repeatedly broke with Trump over military action against Iran, government spending and the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. He spent months insisting that Kentucky Republicans valued independence over obedience. Instead, voters in the deeply conservative 4th District appeared to conclude that loyalty to Trump mattered more.

For months Trump had treated the contest as a personal vendetta. He branded Massie a “moron,” a “nut job” and a “loser,” dispatched top advisers Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio to run a super political action committee against him, and even traveled to Kentucky himself for a rally denouncing the congressman as “disloyal to the United States of America.”

Gallrein campaigned almost entirely as a loyal foot soldier for the president’s agenda. He accused Massie of suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome” and pledged to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with the White House.

The Hill website reported that Kentucky’s 4th District became the most expensive House primary battle in history, citing figures from AdImpact that showed spending of $25.6 million on television, radio and digital advertising.

Gallrein portrayed Massie as a politician who had drifted from Trump’s Make America Great Again movement despite benefiting from it politically for years. Maga Kentucky, the super PAC backing Gallrein, flooded the district with attack ads accusing Massie of siding with Democrats and obstructing the president’s agenda.

Massie argued he was defending the very principles Trump once championed — opposition to endless wars, runaway deficits and government secrecy. But his message increasingly struggled to compete against the emotional force of Trump’s endorsement in the sprawling district, which stretches from Cincinnati’s southern suburbs to the Appalachian foothills.

Gallrein will now enter the general election as the overwhelming favorite in a district that has not elected a Democrat in two decades.

Meanwhile, Trump-backed Rep. Andy Barr easily won a contested Republican primary for Senate in Kentucky to replace the long-serving former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who is retiring.