Donald Trump on Sunday urged Kentucky Republicans to vote out Thomas Massie, calling the congressman the “worst and most unreliable Republican Congressman in the history of our Country” as the president moved to bolster Trump-endorsed challenger Ed Gallrein two days before the primary. Trump wrote on Truth Social that voters should “vote the bum out on Tuesday,” putting fresh heat on one of the party’s most stubborn anti-Trump voices.
The attack landed after a Quantus Insights poll last week showed Gallrein, a farmer and retired U.S. Navy SEAL, ahead of Massie 48% to 43%, with 8% undecided. Massie answered on Sunday by saying, “I’m the only one they haven’t been able to bully,” and added, “I’m ahead in the polls, and they’re desperate … That’s why the president’s losing sleep and tweeting about this.”
Tuesday’s Kentucky Republican primary has become another test of Trump’s grip on the party and of whether a sitting lawmaker can survive a president’s open campaign against him. Massie has spent years bucking Trump and, in 2021, voted against Trump’s signature tax and spending cuts bill, helped force the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and pressed for congressional oversight over U.S. military actions in Venezuela and Iran.
The contest comes as Trump is leaning hard on Republican critics in primaries, and the message has sharpened after another rebuke in the South. On Saturday, Bill Cassidy was ousted in a Republican primary after voting to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, a result that cleared the way for Julia Letlow and John Fleming to compete in a runoff election on 27 June. Trump supporters are pointing to that defeat as proof the former president can still punish defectors, even as a few remain in office. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are the only two Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in the January 6 impeachment trial and remain in place, while David Valadao is the only Republican House member who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 left running for re-election in November.
Massie has also said he is backed by anti-abortion and gun rights groups in Kentucky and by millions of dollars in donations from grassroots voters, a sign that his base is still real even as Trump tries to squeeze it. He has argued that his resistance is what makes him valuable in Washington, while Trump allies have cast him as a problem that needs solving. The outcome on Tuesday will show whether Massie’s independence still carries enough weight with Kentucky Republicans to withstand a direct presidential attack, or whether Gallrein’s campaign and Trump’s endorsement are enough to end one of the party’s longest-running insurgencies from inside its own ranks.
