Ed Gallrein, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who drew support from U.S. President Donald Trump, defeated Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in the Republican primary for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District on Tuesday.
The Associated Press called the race for Gallrein about two hours after the polls closed. At press time, Gallrein leads with 57,053 votes (54.8%) to Massie’s 47,018 (45.2%), with about 96% of votes counted.
The race became the most expensive House primary in history after pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, poured money into the race to defeat Massie, a libertarian who routinely votes against foreign policy measures and who has often been the lone Republican to oppose votes supporting the Jewish state.
Massie had also drawn the ire of Trump after he opposed the president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act and military action against Iran and drug cartels and supported the effort from Democrats to force the U.S. Justice Department to release files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump called Massie “the worst and most unreliable Republican congressman in the history of our country” and a “major sleazebag” on Sunday, in one of a series of posts attacking the Kentucky Republican.
Barbara Feingold, a member of the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which spent $5 million to support Gallrein, told JNS on Monday that the race was a question of values and that Massie posed a threat from within the political right.
“The issue for people of moral clarity, people Jewish and not, who understand who they want to be in elective office, they don’t want someone who is a blatant antisemite,” she said. “We got to be somewhere the right has a few that are not with us, so why not try to take them out? Why should they be an instigator within the right?”
“I don’t want to see the right become like the left, and the only way we’re going to make that happen is to stand up and fight and vote for people that stand with us,” Feingold told JNS. “Massie does not.”
AIPAC congratulated Gallrein for “defeating anti-Israel incumbent Thomas Massie.”
“Pro-Israel Americans are proud to back candidates, who support a strong alliance and help defeat those who work to undermine it,” AIPAC stated. “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.”
More than $32 million was spent in total on the race, which included explosive accusations against both candidates.
One pro-Massie PAC, Hold the Line, aired an ad accusing Gallrein of being “bought and paid for by the LGBTQ mafia” and featured an image of pro-Israel billionaire Paul Singer in front of a Star of David in rainbow colors.
That ad may have been part of the inspiration for the son of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to engage in a drunken rant against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) at a Capitol Hill bar, in which he told Lawler, who is not Jewish, that “you Jews” would be responsible if Massie loses the primary.
Matt Brooks, CEO of the RJC, stated that Gallrein had won a “decisive primary victory.”
“Kentucky Republicans sent an unmistakable message: there is no place in the Republican Party for those who turn their back on the MAGA agenda,” he stated, of the president’s Make America Great Again platform. “For years, the Republican Jewish Coalition has opposed Thomas Massie, and for good reason.”
The congressman “has been a thorn in the side of President Trump, the Republican Party and the Jewish community writ large, siding time and again with the far-left Squad on top issues of concern,” Brooks stated.
“In addition to opposing the Working Families Tax Cuts, opposing border security funding and opposing Holocaust education funding, Massie has stood alone among House Republicans in opposing aid to our ally Israel, voting against bipartisan resolutions condemning antisemitism,” he stated. “In the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack—the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust—Massie voted against emergency assistance for Israel as it fought a war for its very survival.”
“His record is indefensible and tonight, the Republican primary voters of Kentucky held him accountable,” Brooks stated. “Notably, Massie’s conduct throughout this campaign, trafficking in antisemitism and bottom-of-the-barrel nativism at a time when Jew-hatred is on the rise, was wildly unacceptable and outrageous from an elected member of Congress.”
Sandra Hagee Parker, chairwoman of the Christians United for Israel Action Fund, stated that “the people of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District have taken the first step towards shedding themselves of a long time embarrassment.”
“In the GOP, it should be crystal clear that if you choose the path of antisemitism, anti-Americanism and more often stand with jihadists than stand up for Judeo-Christian values, your time in office will be short,” she stated.
