Trump Pick Ed Gallrein Crushes Thomas Massie in $32 Million Kentucky GOP Primary, Ending a 14-Year Career in Most Expensive U.S. House Race Ever

Rep. Thomas Massie, the libertarian Kentucky Republican who spent a decade and a half as one of the most reliable thorns in Donald Trump's side, lost his House seat Tuesday night in a primary defeat that closed out the most expensive U.S. House race in American history. The Associated Press, CBS News and CNN all called the 4th Congressional District contest for Ed Gallrein, a 41-year-old former Navy SEAL recruited and endorsed personally by the president. With most of the vote counted, Gallrein led Massie by roughly 22 percentage points in a district Trump carried by 47 points in 2024.

The race shattered every previous spending record for a House primary. Pro-Trump and pro-Israel super PACs, led by the Make America Great Again Inc. and a network of groups tied to AIPAC affiliates, poured more than $32 million into ads attacking Massie as a "disaster" and a "Putin apologist," largely because of his repeated votes against military aid to Israel and his opposition to the administration's air campaign against Iran. Trump traveled to Lexington in March to headline a rally for Gallrein and dispatched Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to barnstorm the district in the final week — a near-unprecedented breach of Pentagon political norms that Massie's allies accused of crossing legal lines.

Massie, first elected in 2012 on the strength of the Tea Party wave, was the only Republican to oppose Trump's first impeachment trial vote in 2020 and one of just a handful to vote against the One Big Beautiful Bill earlier this year. He was also the lone Republican to back a War Powers Resolution last month that would have required congressional authorization for further strikes on Iran. "I made every vote a vote of conscience, and I have no regrets," Massie told supporters in a concession speech in Garrison, his Lewis County hometown. He congratulated Gallrein "on running a well-funded campaign" and asked the crowd to "treat the next congressman with the courtesy I tried to extend."

Gallrein, a fifth-generation Kentuckian who served two combat tours in Iraq and a tour in Afghanistan before launching a small logistics company, delivered a victory speech in Frankfort flanked by his wife and three young daughters. "Tonight the Fourth District sent a message to Washington that we are done with grandstanding and ready for delivery," he said, pledging to vote for "every single piece of President Trump's agenda." Trump posted on Truth Social within minutes of the call: "BIG WIN in Kentucky! ED GALLREIN crushed it. Thomas Massie was a JOKE — now he can write his memoirs!"

Massie's defeat was the headline result of a primary night that also saw six other states vote in down-ballot contests, including the Georgia Senate race where former Gov. Brian Kemp easily won the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. But the Kentucky loss carries outsized political weight: Massie is the third House Republican to lose a primary this cycle to a Trump-backed challenger, after South Carolina's Nancy Mace in February and Tennessee's Andy Ogles in March. House Speaker Mike Johnson, asked Tuesday whether the result would chill internal dissent in his narrow majority, told reporters, "Members have a clear choice now — be part of the team, or be part of the past."