{"id":22976,"date":"2026-05-19T20:02:52","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/can-massie-remain-standing-even-as-other-trump-enemies-fall\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T20:02:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T20:02:52","slug":"can-massie-remain-standing-even-as-other-trump-enemies-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/can-massie-remain-standing-even-as-other-trump-enemies-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Massie remain standing even as other Trump enemies fall?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Next stop on President Donald Trump\u2019s revenge tour: Kentucky.<\/p>\n

On the heels of ousting several Indiana state lawmakers<\/a> early this month and Sen. Bill Cassidy<\/a> just days ago, the White House is well-positioned to remove rebellious Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky\u2019s GOP primary on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the final checkpoints in Trump\u2019s monthlong effort to punish Republicans for bucking him. And the list of Massie\u2019s sins is long, from his opposition to the president\u2019s signature tax-and-spending plan to his forceful stands against the war in Iran and successfully pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is coming in as the leader of the party and he has every right to flex his muscle,\u201d said Shane Noem, who is neutral in the race as the chair of the Kenton County Republican Party in Massie\u2019s district. \u201cThe question remains: Will the \u2018Average Joe\u2019 Republican lean into the party, or will they lean into an outsider who\u2019s been in the party for 14 years?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kentucky libertarian\u2019s fate is the biggest in a slate of tests Tuesday of Trump\u2019s grip on the GOP. In Georgia, the Trump-backed gubernatorial candidate seems likely to advance to a runoff, while Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger \u2014 who refused to accept the president\u2019s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results \u2014 is polling in third place. In Alabama, Trump\u2019s endorsement of Rep. Barry Moore in the GOP Senate primary helped boost him to front-runner status.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s endorsement has proven to be decisive in GOP primaries and a mobilizing force for his base. A Blue Light News poll, conducted by Public First from May 9 to 11, found that nearly half of voters who plan to vote Republican in the midterms would choose a candidate officially endorsed by the president, compared with a candidate Trump hasn\u2019t endorsed but isn\u2019t opposed to (28 percent), or a candidate he\u2019s actively trying to block (9 percent).<\/p>\n

Trump and his allies have had some major recent successes in taking out the president\u2019s foes. They spent more than $9 million to pick off five state lawmakers who opposed his redistricting push in Indiana. In Louisiana, Trump lent the influence of his social media account to boost Rep. Julia Letlow early on in the race and State Treasurer John Fleming in the final hours.<\/p>\n

But no one has drawn the ire of Trump and his team quite like Massie. The president\u2019s endorsement of former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein united local forces and various factions of the GOP<\/a> in trying to sink the iconoclastic Kentucky conservative with a libertarian lean. Spending in the race has topped $32 million, making it the most expensive House primary in history, per tracking firm AdImpact. Trump\u2019s political operation and pro-Israel groups<\/a> who\u2019ve long opposed the incumbent have unleashed more than $16 million against him. Trump rallied with Gallrein in March, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promoted him at an event in the district on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Polling shows a tightening race down the home stretch after Massie led earlier on, with one survey showing Massie leading Gallrein<\/a> by just over 1 percentage point and two others showing him trailing by 7<\/a> and 8 points<\/a>, respectively.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s allies are growing bullish after his romps through other red states: \u201cGot another one coming Tuesday,\u201d Chris LaCivita, Trump\u2019s former campaign manager who is running the anti-Massie super PAC MAGA KY, recently posted on X<\/a>. in response to a meme of the president knocking out Cassidy with a golf ball.<\/p>\n

Asked for comment, the White House pointed to Trump\u2019s recent Truth Social post<\/a> praising Gallrein as a \u201cWINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN\u201d and calling Massie \u201ca totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie is a tougher target than some of Trump\u2019s other foes. His libertarian-conservative politics mirror those of his northern Kentucky district where many voters cheer his contrarian stances as principled stands. He has allies in some of the America First movement\u2019s loudest voices, like Tucker Carlson, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who rallied with Massie over the weekend \u2014 and even drew a threat of a primary challenge from Trump over that decision, though the filing period has closed.<\/p>\n

Massie is not only clear-eyed about the threat he faces, but leaning into the challenge. He has projected confidence down the home stretch, even as Trump\u2019s foes continue to fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m glad he’s in with both feet,\u201d Massie told Blue Light News on Friday as he left the Capitol for the campaign trail. \u201cThis will be his biggest loss ever as far as endorsements go.\u201d<\/p>\n

After felling Cassidy, Trump took to Truth Social to label Massie the\u201cworst Republican Congressman in History.\u201d Massie responded on ABC that he was leading and his foes were \u201cdesperate.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a race that revolves around Trump, Massie has been trying to make the case to voters that they can back him and<\/i> back the president. He\u2019s attempted to thread the needle on his dissent by arguing he\u2019s with the president \u201cnearly all of the time.\u201d<\/a> The times when he\u2019s not \u2014 the Epstein files, spending, foreign interventions \u2014 he says, are because the administration has shifted on its core values, not him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMassie\u2019s sitting to the right of Trump and Trump\u2019s never really tried to take out somebody who\u2019s to the right of him before,\u201d said Tres Watson, a Kentucky-based GOP strategist who is not working for either campaign.<\/p>\n

Massie\u2019s opposition to Trump\u2019s interventions in Iran and longstanding opposition to U.S. aid to Israel have turned the race into a tussle over the definition of \u201cAmerica First\u201d and the base\u2019s adherence to it as some Republicans, particularly younger ones, splinter over the wars in the Middle East<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a congressional race, but it’s also somewhat of a national movement, and it would be bad for Republicans\u2019 prospects in the midterms if I lose,\u201d Massie said. \u201cNot just because they’ve wasted $10 million of Republican mega donor money on a seat that’s going to be red anyway. It\u2019s going to be because those people will be like \u2018why am I even voting Republican?\u2019 \u2026 they\u2019ll stay home.\u201d<\/p>\n

A win on Tuesday, Massie said, gives him \u201cantibodies\u201d against the president and his political machine. In proving it is possible to withstand Trump\u2019s wrath, it could provide a model for other Republicans who break with the president, though vanishingly few remain in Congress.<\/p>\n

A Massie defeat \u2014 especially on the heels of Cassidy\u2019s Louisiana loss \u2014 would signal a larger reality facing the GOP: There\u2019s little room within the party anymore for politicians who disagree with Trump, even as he enters the back half of his presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere used to be room for effective, mild-mannered wonkish types because they got stuff done and industry and voters appreciated it,\u201d said one Republican strategist working on the Alabama Senate race on behalf of a Moore opponent, granted anonymity to speak freely without fear of retribution. \u201cNow it\u2019s just different.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Next stop on President Donald Trump\u2019s revenge tour: Kentucky. On the heels of ousting several Indiana state lawmakers early this month and Sen. Bill Cassidy just days ago, the White House is well-positioned to remove rebellious Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky\u2019s GOP primary on Tuesday. It\u2019s one of the final checkpoints in Trump\u2019s monthlong effort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}