President Donald Trump’s grip on Republican primary voters was on display again Tuesday as candidates he backed won or led in contests across Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky, including a House race in Kentucky where Representative Thomas Massie was unseated. The defeats and advances came as Trump also weighed in on a key Texas Senate fight, underscoring how much the party’s nominating contests still run through him.
In Kentucky, Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL, defeated Massie in the Republican primary for the House. Massie, a frequent Republican holdout, made no apologies for opposing Trump on the war with Iran or the Epstein files. Gallrein’s victory was part of the clearest result of the night: Trump-backed Republicans won or were in first place in primaries in three states.
Georgia produced the most complicated race of the evening. Representative Mike Collins finished first in the Republican primary for Senate, but he fell short of 50 percent and will face Derek Dooley, a former college football coach, in a runoff next month. Representative Buddy Carter finished third. The winner of that runoff will take on Senator Jon Ossoff, who had $32.5 million in his campaign account at the end of April.
Kentucky also delivered another Republican setback for Trump skeptics. Representative Andy Barr easily turned back Daniel Cameron, the former state attorney general, in the GOP primary for Senate. The result added to a pattern that has emerged over the past week, after several Indiana state senators lost their primary races for resisting Trump’s redistricting push and after Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana lost his primary Saturday night following a Trump-backed challenge.
Trump’s influence extended beyond the three states with votes on Tuesday. He endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas, a move seen as a hammer blow to Senator John Cornyn’s hopes ahead of a runoff election next week. In Kentucky, Nate Morris had already left the Senate race after being coaxed out by a promise of being appointed an ambassador, clearing another lane in the state’s Republican lineup.
The Kentucky House race carried a price tag that showed how hard the fight had become: $32.5 million, the most expensive House primary in recent history. That kind of spending, paired with Trump’s ability to settle contested races, points to a Republican electorate that remains intensely loyal to him even as the party worries about losing Senate seats and is poised to lose ground in the House.
The Tuesday primary results left Trump in a familiar position: still the dominant force in the party’s nominating fights, still able to break careers and elevate loyalists, and still the figure every serious Republican hopeful has to court, even when a runoff or a general election lies ahead.
