Retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein is launching a Republican primary challenge to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in the commonwealth’s deep-red 4th District with the backing of President Donald Trump.
“This district is Trump Country. The President doesn’t need obstacles in Congress — he needs backup,” Gallrein said in a statement Tuesday. “I’ll defeat Thomas Massie, stand shoulder to shoulder with President Trump, and deliver the America First results Kentuckians voted for.”
Massie has drawn Trump’s ire for opposing key parts of the president’s agenda — and, perhaps more notably, he is the lead Republican on an effort to require the Justice Department to release records related to the late convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO from the Great Commonwealth of Kentucky, a place I love, and won big SIX TIMES, must be thrown out of office, ASAP!” Trump said on his Truth Social platform Friday, also endorsing Gallrein ahead of the campaign announcement.
“In Congress, [Gallrein] will fight tirelessly to Keep our now very Secure Border, SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” the president said of Massie’s challenger, who unsuccessfully ran for the Kentucky Senate last year.
Trump’s support has long proved decisive in Republican primaries across the country over the past decade, although Massie has the advantage of incumbency and a massive war chest. He entered October with more than $2 million in his campaign coffers, federal records show.
Massie responded to Gallrein’s entry with a fundraising request on social media, writing, “The uniparty in DC finally found someone willing to be a rubber stamp for globalist billionaires, endless debt, foreign aid, and forever wars. Can you help me fight this?”
First elected in 2012, Massie is currently serving his seventh full term representing the 4th District, which stretches along the Ohio River and includes suburbs of Cincinnati and Louisville. Trump carried the seat by 36 points last fall, according to calculations by Inside Elections, while Massie ran unopposed in the general election.
Massie has been a thorn in House GOP leadership’s side for years, voting against so many pieces of legislation that he earned the moniker “Mr. No.” He described his political style in HBO’s 2020 documentary “The Swamp,” saying, “I’m kind of a libertarian, but I prefer the label ‘constitutional conservative.’”
Recruiting a primary challenger against Massie was a priority for Trump and his allies, especially after the congressman voted against the president’s signature tax and spending package earlier this year. Over the summer, Massie was the target of an ad campaign by a Trump-aligned super PAC formed with the express purpose of defeating him in 2026.
Nevertheless, Massie has kept up his criticism of parts of the Trump agenda. On Monday, he posted on X in response to Trump’s potential decision to purchase beef from Argentina: “This is not America first! We don’t need the U.S. flooded with beef from Argentina after our cattle ranchers have taken a beating over the last several years.”
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