Republican Rep. Thomas Massie lost his Kentucky primary on Tuesday, handing a victory to the president in a race seen as a referendum on Donald Trump.
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It also reaffirmed the grip of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in GOP politics.
AIPAC’s super political action committee and two other groups backed by pro-Israel donors poured more than $15.8 million into the race either opposing Massie or supporting his opponent, former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, according to Federal Election Commission reports released through Tuesday.
That blizzard of cash may not have been as important for Republican primary voters as Trump’s hatred of Massie. Still, it helped make the 4th Congressional District race the most expensive House primary in history, with overall spending reaching $32 million, topping the 2024 New York Democratic primary in which AIPAC’s super PAC aided Westchester County Executive George Latimer in ousting then-Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Massie had framed the race in terms that led to accusations of antisemitism, calling it “a referendum on whether Israel gets to buy seats in Congress.” He denied the charge and repeated similar language in his concession speech Tuesday night. “For 14 years, those S.O.B.s in Washington tried to buy my vote,” Massie said. “Why did the race get so expensive? Because they decided to buy the seat.”
Massie is a libertarian contrarian who reliably votes for the conservative position on measures in the House — but he has generated headaches for Trump on everything from the Justice Department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein to the NSA’s surveillance of Americans.
He has also been a critic of U.S. funding for Israel and the war on Iran. His vote has helped make every attempt at blocking the conflict through a war powers resolution bipartisan, although so far all of them have fallen short.
A spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, described Massie as “the most anti-Israel Republican in the House.”
The Kentucky representative says he is taking a stand on principle: He has always opposed foreign aid in general.
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“I have never voted for foreign aid to Egypt, to Syria, to Israel or to Ukraine,” Massie told CBS News. “But the ones in Israel, since they’re the biggest recipients of it, that makes them a little bit mad.”
Republicans still overwhelmingly support Israel, according to public opinion polls. But the share who do so has declined significantly over the last few years, and younger GOP voters are much less supportive of unconditional funding for Israel.
When he emerged for his concession speech on Tuesday, a grinning Massie told the crowd, “I would have come out sooner but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
In a statement congratulating Gallrein on Tuesday, AIPAC announced that voters “support Democratic and Republican candidates who view a strong U.S.-Israel relationship as an American interest and reject those who focus on attacking that alliance and pro-Israel Americans.”
“Massie has been one of the most consistently hostile voices in Congress toward the U.S.-Israel relationship and the millions of Americans who support it,” read the AIPAC statement posted on X. “Our community was proud to support Gallrein and help ensure Massie’s defeat.”
The race was dogged by accusations of antisemitism and salacious, negative advertising. Massie’s opponents seized on a pro-Massie super PAC’s television ad that featured a picture of anti-Massie billionaire donor Paul Singer with a rainbow Star of David and that accused Gallrein of being backed by “the gay mafia.” Meanwhile, the anti-Massie camp created a deepfake artificial intelligence ad pointing to the few times he crossed party lines to accuse him of being in a “throuple” with progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.
Singer was the largest donor to MAGA KY, the Trump-supported super PAC that was created specifically to oust Massie.
Also spending against the representative were the United Democracy Project and the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund.
This developing story has been updated.
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