FLASH: Thomas Massie conceded the election tonight; with 96% of the vote counted, Massie had won 45.2% of the vote, his opponent Ed Gallrein, 54.8%. Defeated in the polls, but not the least bit in attitude: when Massie arrived at the podium of his boisterous election night gathering at his campaign site, he told his supporters he was sorry for being late, “but I had to call my opponent to concede the election, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv,” he said, laughing. Welcome to the most expensive primary in this country’s 250 years, he added; the estimates of $35 million spent will likely rise when all is said and done. He, meanwhile, would like to thank all his donors, but it would take too long to name all 50,000 of them! Yes, it seems like many Americans “will go along to get along,” he said. But we have stirred something up, especially in the young people who are yearning for principles over party. The cheers, laughter, and chants of “no more wars! No more wars! from his supporters as he spoke demonstrated that his supporters, likewise, remain defiant.
Even before the primary was over, it was clear that President Donald Trump made a big mistake in turning his drive to oust Rep. Thomas Massie from the House of Representatives into a strategic test of his domestic political power. The President posted more childish, name-calling attacks against Massie on his Truth Social in the 72 or so hours before the primary closed, than on all other subjects combined. AIPAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition, and three avowed Zionist billionaires (Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson) poured upwards of $15 million into the campaign of Massie’s opponent, Ed Gallrein, the “deep state” loyalist Trump is championing.
Meanwhile, Rep. Massie, who opposed Trump’s Iran war and led the bill to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, reports that he has received tens of thousands of contributions, with the average contribution coming out to $80. Dozens of social media “influencers” and podcasters from around the nation, big and small, have deployed into Kentucky to add to Massie’s capability to mobilize his large grassroots support.
“Trump knows I’m tough to beat,” Massie told CBS on Monday. “He’s literally losing sleep over this race, because he’s in with both feet. I think their polling shows what our polling shows, which is there’s a better-than-half chance that we’re going to win this race.” The decision to send Pete Hegseth into the state to campaign for Gallrein shows their desperation. “You don’t send the Secretary of War to Kentucky during a war if you think your candidate is up 10 points. That’s what you do when you realize your whole campaign is imploding,” he chuckled.
