Trump critic Thomas Massie defeated in Kentucky Republican House primary
Donald Trump displayed his supremacy over the Republican party on Tuesday when voters in northern Kentucky rejected the maverick congressman Thomas Massie in favour of
Donald Trump displayed his supremacy over the Republican party on Tuesday when voters in northern Kentucky rejected the maverick congressman Thomas Massie in favour of the US president’s hand-picked challenger. Ed Gallrein, a retired navy Seal and farmer who was recruited into the race by Trump, defeated the seven-term incumbent in a primary election in Kentucky’s fourth congressional district in what the president’s allies framed as a test of whether dissent could still exist inside today’s Republican party. The election took place as voters in five other states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon and Idaho – went to the polls to decide their nominees for the November general election, in what was the biggest primary night of the year so far. In Georgia’s gubernatorial race, lieutenant governor Burt Jones and billionaire Rick Jackson advanced to a runoff for the GOP nomination, locking out Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, in what amounted to another defeat of a prominent Trump critic. The Republican nominee will face former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who won the Democratic nomination outright. In Alabama, Trump ally Tommy Tuberville won the Republican primary for governor, while former senator Doug Jones secured the Democratic nomination. Meanwhile, in battleground Pennsylvania, voters chose their nominees for a string of competitive House races that could help decide the majority in November, while Democrats elevated Chris Rabb, self-described as “aggressively anti‑establishment” in a closely watched primary that became a microcosm of the party’s internal struggles.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump endorsed Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general running for Senate, in a primary runoff against incumbent John Cornyn, infuriating some in his party. In Kentucky, Massie now joins the ranks of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney and other elected Republicans who were either ousted or decided to retire because of their party’s capitulation to Trump. Over the weekend, Senator Bill Cassidy, who voted in favour of Trump’s conviction after the 6 January insurrection, lost a primary in Louisiana after the president backed challenger Julia Letlow. Massie, a libertarian-minded conservative, repeatedly broke with the president over military action against Iran, government spending and the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. He spent months insisting that Kentucky Republicans valued independence over obedience. Instead, voters in the deeply conservative fourth congressional district appeared to conclude that loyalty to Trump mattered more. For months, Trump had treated the contest as a personal vendetta. He branded Massie a “moron”, a “nut job” and a “loser”, dispatched top advisers Chris LaCivita and Tony Fabrizio to run a Super Pac against him, and even travelled to Kentucky himself for a rally denouncing the congressman as “disloyal to the United States of America”. Trump did not let up after Massie’s defeat.
The BriefWire