Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District Republican primary is turning into a test of whether President Donald Trump’s endorsement and attacks will override a long-running local pattern of backing Rep. Thomas Massie, an independent-leaning congressman who has repeatedly broken with party leaders. Massie said he will face what he called “by far the most challenging reelection I’ve ever faced,” as Trump supports Massie’s challenger, Ed Gallrein, ahead of next Tuesday’s vote.
In Covington, Ky., where Republicans gathered for a Lincoln Day Dinner, the contest played out less as a debate over only policy than as a question of loyalty and identity within the party. Massie, stuck in Washington for a Capitol Hill vote, did not attend, but supporters filled the banquet hall as Gallrein’s backers and Massie’s allies tried to shape what voters should think of the president’s intervention.
At the dinner, attendees first heard Ed Gallrein described by President Donald Trump as a challenger to Massie. One supporter in the audience referenced Gallrein’s pitch against Massie through a phrase the AP said described Massie as suffering from “a severe case of Trump derangement syndrome.” Later, Gex Williams, a state senator backing Massie, urged the crowd not to worry that supporting Trump would force voters to abandon Massie.
“If you are thinking that you can’t be for President Trump and for Thomas Massie, you certainly can be,” Williams said at the Lincoln Day Dinner, according to the AP. Other voters at the event suggested they were weighing Massie’s record rather than reacting to Trump’s endorsement alone, even as they acknowledged the president’s personal criticism of Massie.
Trump’s involvement has included unusual attention for a congressional primary, the AP reported, as the president made a trip to Kentucky to campaign against Massie. Some of Trump’s advisers have also worked to help Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, with the effort. Trump has attacked Massie by name, calling him a “moron” and a “nut job” and saying he would go down as the “WORST Republican Congressman,” the AP reported.
Massie’s supporters point to the policy and political disputes that have put him at odds with Trump, and to an established habit among constituents of choosing him anyway. The AP said Massie angered Trump by voting against the president’s signature tax legislation over concerns about the national debt, by pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and by opposing Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. Massie framed his upcoming campaign as rooted in Trump-era “America First promises” that he said were made on the campaign trail.
The argument in Covington also reflected a broader reckoning inside Kentucky’s 4th District, which the AP described as sweeping northeast from the outskirts of Louisville along the Ohio River, through suburbs south of Cincinnati, and into Appalachian foothills and coal towns. The district has returned Massie to Congress since his first election in 2012, with some voters having brushed off Trump’s earlier social-media demand to “throw Massie out of Republican Party” in 2020, when the president described him as a “third rate Grandstander.”
Still, the dinner audience split on how much to treat Trump’s current endorsement as decisive. Tonya Young, a 57-year-old special education teacher who told the AP she was leaning toward Massie but undecided, said she was wrestling with a possible need to compromise on some issues. “If all we’re doing is pulling in yes men, then how do you grow from that? How do you have the best end product if everyone just says, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great idea,’” Young said, adding, “However, I do feel like it’s important to stay loyal. That’s where, I’m like, I’m a hot mess.” She said she would examine the Republican-backed bills Massie voted against before deciding, and that she was not making Trump’s endorsement or insults a major part of the calculation.
Other attendees drew a harder line on party alignment. Steve Jarvis, a 77-year-old retired law enforcement officer, told the AP he decided he would vote against Massie for the first time, saying Massie’s departures from the party “made me nuts.” Jarvis said Massie’s vote against Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”—citing the bill’s effects on the deficit and inflation—was one of the reasons he changed his mind, and he said he believed Gallrein would “get in line.” Jana Kathman, however, told the AP she was going to vote for Massie even though he makes her mad, describing her support as personal and conviction-based.
Gallrein mounted a prepared speech at the dinner, according to the AP, presenting himself as someone motivated by Ronald Reagan to join the Navy SEALs and saying he had been asked by Trump to serve again in Congress. The AP reported that Gallrein hyped Trump, including saying Trump does not take a salary, and listed policies that Massie voted against, casting Massie as aligning with “radical Democrats.” The AP also said Gallrein declined an interview request and declined to attend candidate forums and debates with Massie.
Massie, for his part, argued that the contrast between Gallrein’s loyalty and a lack of a detailed public platform meant voters should stick with him, using a line that has become a refrain for him. “Politicians promise during the campaign, and then they go to D.C. to go along to get along,” Massie said. “My opponent is promising to go along to get along.” He also suggested he expects Trump’s anger to fade once Gallrein and Massie finish the primary contest.
In Covington, Massie described Trump’s broadside against him as something like a temporary immune reaction. “Once this race is over, I don’t think there’s any benefit to him attacking me, I’ll have the antibodies from a natural infection,” Massie said, according to the AP, adding that he “may” already have those antibodies and calling the primary “This will be the booster shot.”