Politics
The Republican Party’s Last Libertarian Is Fighting for His Life
By Mike Harper · May 19, 2026
On Saturday, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana became the latest Republican to lose a primary to a Trump-backed challenger. Earlier this month, five Indiana state senators who defied Trump on redistricting were unseated. Today, polls opened in Kentucky with Thomas Massie — the congressman Trump has called “the worst in history” and specifically recruited an opponent to unseat — on the ballot.
Massie has served eight terms in northern Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, winning by comfortable margins every cycle. In 2024 he ran unopposed. This year, Trump spent months searching for someone to run against him, eventually recruiting Ed Gallrein — a fifth-generation farmer and former Navy SEAL — to make the race. On the eve of the primary, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew to Hebron, Kentucky to campaign for Gallrein at a rally. Trump spent the weekend posting on Truth Social that Kentucky voters should put Massie “out of business.”
The reasons for Trump’s anger are specific and documented. Massie has blocked Trump’s signature tax legislation over concerns it would increase the national debt. He has criticized the Iran war and voted repeatedly to invoke war powers limits. He has pushed publicly for the release of Jeffrey Epstein files in ways that generated political friction for the White House. He has opposed US aid to Israel. He is, by his own description in a Capitol Hill interview with NBC News, “the rare Republican in Washington who has continued to openly challenge Trump.”
That profile has made him the highest-profile target of the 2026 primary purge.
Massie did not fight the primary alone. He brought in Representative Lauren Boebert — a Trump loyalist who nonetheless campaigned beside Massie — to demonstrate he could attract supporters who back both him and the president. He raised and spent significantly more money than Gallrein. He ran on his record rather than running from Trump, arguing that his independence on the debt and Iran has been consistent with his entire political career and his constituents’ interests.
The district itself presents a genuine test. Trump won all 21 counties in Kentucky’s 4th District in 2024, carrying each with at least 59% of the vote. But Massie also outperformed Trump in two of those counties in 2022. Only registered Republicans can vote in today’s closed primary — meaning the result reflects the preferences of the most committed Republican base voters in the district, not the general electorate.
Today is one of the busiest primary days of the 2026 midterm calendar, with voters in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, and Pennsylvania casting ballots. The marquee race in Kentucky beyond Massie is the US Senate primary, where several Republicans are competing for the nomination to fill the seat being vacated by Senator Mitch McConnell, who announced his retirement in February.
Polls close in Kentucky at 6 PM Eastern. Results are expected by late evening.