Kentucky’s primaries on Tuesday determine nominees for the U.S. Senate, multiple U.S. House races, and the state General Assembly, along with a Louisville mayoral contest. In the marquee Republican congressional primary, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie—described by the Associated Press as among President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics within the Republican Party—faces a challenge from Ed Gallrein, a farmer and former Navy SEAL who entered the race at Trump’s urging.
Massie seeks the GOP nomination in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District for an 8th full term. The AP characterizes the matchup as another example of Trump trying to purge Republicans he perceives as disloyal. Kentucky’s primary election will also include contests for U.S. Senate, five U.S. House seats, and the state legislature, and it will narrow a crowded mayoral field in Louisville.
The 4th Congressional District covers northern Kentucky along the Ohio River and borders Indiana and Ohio. In the 2024 general election, Trump received about 67% of the district’s vote, carrying all 21 counties with at least 59%. Massie ran unopposed in 2024 and received 65% of the vote in his 2022 reelection, and while he carried every county in 2022, Trump outperformed him in all but two counties two years later.
The AP reports that Massie has the fundraising advantage, but Gallrein has remained competitive. It says Massie more than doubled Gallrein’s spending during the campaign, while the two candidates began the month on comparable footing in terms of funds in the bank.
Massie is also described as a rare Republican in Washington who has clashed with Trump on key domestic and foreign policy initiatives. The AP says Massie opposed Trump’s signature tax package and the war with Iran and also led an effort in Congress to release files of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In the Senate races, nearly 20 candidates are competing for the Republican nomination to succeed longtime GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is retiring after seven terms.
Among the 11 candidates for the Republican nomination in the Senate race, the AP lists U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, who has Trump’s endorsement, and former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a former McConnell aide who has criticized his ex-boss on the campaign trail. On the Democratic side, the AP says seven candidates are seeking the nomination, including former state Rep. Charles Booker, military veteran and 2020 U.S. Senate nominee Amy McGrath, and state House Minority Leader Pamela Stevenson.
Louisville’s mayoral contest is nonpartisan and will be decided in a primary where the top two vote-getters advance to the general election. The AP reports that Mayor Craig Greenberg is running for a second term against 10 other candidates, and it will be up to voters Tuesday to determine which two move forward.
For Election Day logistics, the AP reports that polls close at 6 p.m. local time. That is 6 p.m. ET and 7 p.m. ET depending on whether a county follows Eastern time or Central time. Polls in most of Kentucky close at 6 p.m. ET, while polls in the Central Time Zone close at 7 p.m. ET.
The AP also lays out who can vote in Tuesday’s primaries: only voters registered with a political party may participate in that party’s primary, and Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. Independent or unaffiliated voters cannot participate in either primary.
The AP reports that as of April 24 Kentucky had about 3.4 million registered voters, including about 1.6 million registered Republicans and about 1.4 million registered Democrats. It says in the 2022 primaries about 386,000 votes were cast in the Republican Senate primary and about 292,000 were cast in the Democratic Senate primary, and that about 21% of the Democratic vote and about 17% of the Republican vote in the 2023 state primaries was cast before primary day.
As of Wednesday, the AP reports about 27,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election, including about 14,000 from Republicans and about 12,000 from Democrats. The AP says vote release practices vary by county, with early and absentee results typically coming first from medium-to-large sized counties, and that in the 2024 primary the AP first reported results at 6:06 p.m. ET and had the final vote update of the night at 9:47 p.m. ET with more than 99.9% of total votes counted.
Kentucky law requires an automatic recount for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, the state General Assembly and nearly all statewide offices if the margin is 0.5% of the total vote or less. The AP says it may declare a winner in a race subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome, and it notes that as of Tuesday there will be 168 days until the 2026 midterm elections.