Morning Digest: Trump wants this GOP congressman gone—so he's bear-hugging Trump

Thomas Massie has often defied MAGA's master. Now, he's using him to parry his Trump-backed primary opponent.

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie (R) (Thomas Massie Facebook)

Leading Off

KY-04

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie has burnished his nonconformist reputation by loudly and frequently defying Donald Trump’s wishes, but as he faces a Trump-backed primary challenger, he’s now embracing—and emulating—the very man who’d like to see him booted from office.

“Woke Eddie Gallrein abandoned President Trump’s Republican Party, a complete dereliction of his MAGA duty,” the narrator says in a commercial Massie debuted last month against opponent Ed Gallrein. “Woke Eddie left the Republican Party right after President Trump won the Republican nomination.”

“Guess when he finally changed his registration back to the Republican Party,” the spot continues. “That’s right: Only after President Trump was no longer in office and Joe Biden had become president.”

Trump himself, though, doesn’t seem upset that his chosen candidate was a registered independent from 2016 until he returned to the GOP in 2021. If anything, he’s been supportive of Gallrein’s journey.

At an event in northern Kentucky last month, he assured the crowd, “Ed became an independent a few years ago because he was so angry at the way the Republican Party was operating. And I don’t disagree with him.”

Trump made those comments a few days after he fired off a Truth Social post calling Massie “the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress, even worse than Crazy Liz Chaney, Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger, and Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Remember, Green turns to Brown under stress!).” Trump concluded that Massie “will hopefully lose BIG” in the May 19 primary.

Viewers might therefore be surprised that a new ad that opens with a photo of Liz Cheney, as well as fellow Trump critics Mitt Romney and Chris Christie, is attacking Gallrein.

“These Trump traitors,” the narrator begins in a spot from a pro-Massie group called Kentucky 4th PAC. “They can’t stand our president and can’t help but let it show. Like Woke Eddie Gallrein.”

After reminding viewers that Gallrein temporarily left the GOP, the narrator declares, “Trump was in the foxhole, and Woke Eddie Gallrein tucked his tail and ran.” That conclusion is underscored with an AI-generated video depicting Trump firing a gun on a battlefield as Gallrein flees the combat zone.

Massie himself has argued that he’s anything but the Trump hater that MAGA’s master thinks he is.

“People support Trump, but they also support what he campaigned on,” he told NBC last month. “When people support me, they’re supporting the things that Donald Trump campaigned on actually getting done. And when they support Donald Trump, they’re supporting the man they voted for in the last election.”

Massie’s delicate dance was astutely summed up by Inside Elections’ Jacob Rubashkin, who recently observed that the congressman “can’t rely on his unique brand alone and has to muddy the waters on his feud with Trump.”

It’s not the only strategy the congressman is deploying as he tries to outflank Gallrein from the right.

“Woke Eddie Gallrein’s got a record that liberals AOC, Nancy Pelosi, and Kamala love,” a narrator says in another new commercial, this one from Massie’s campaign.

“See, Woke Eddie was chair and executive coach for a company that trains biz leaders on implementing woke DEI programs, including watching a film that helped them support gender transitions. They even recommended radical books by authors who defended Black Lives Matter riots and demanded America pay reparations for slavery.”

“It’s simple,” the spot concludes. “You can’t spell ‘Woke Eddie’ without ‘DEI.’”

Massie’s enemies, by contrast, have spent the better part of a year airing ads telling viewers that the congressman is hostile to Trump’s agenda.

A super PAC run by top advisors to Trump launched a commercial all the way back in June slamming Massie for voting against Trump’s efforts to “ban[] sex changes on minors” and claims the congressman “sided with Democrats and the ayatollah” after Trump “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” (Subsequent events seem to indicate that no such obliteration took place.)

That early offensive foreshadowed the expensive battle for the GOP nomination that was in store for Kentucky’s 4th District, a deeply conservative constituency in the northern part of the state. AdImpact reported Wednesday that Gallrein and his backers have spent or reserved $5.8 million on ads, while Massie’s side has nearly matched them with a $5 million outlay.

That price tag, though, will likely continue to swell in the final month-and-a-half before the primary.

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Trump’s Sunday social media post—“Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”—was vile even for him. But as horrifying as it was, the knee-jerk instinct by much of the traditional media to sanewash Trump’s rant was even worse. Many outlets refused to print his exact words, making him seem considerably less unhinged than he in fact was.

Suffice it to say, we never mince words at The Downballot. If a politician utters something disgusting, we don’t shield them from the consequences. We’ll print what they have to say verbatim, and we’ll tell the truth about why it matters and what it means.

If you appreciate our commitment to the truth, then we hope you’ll consider supporting us as an antidote to our country’s overwhelmingly supine media by becoming a paid subscriber.

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10 of the hottest races for governor

Redistricting Roundup

VA Redistricting

A new poll shows Virginia voters in favor of a constitutional amendment that would allow the state to adopt a new Democratic-drawn congressional map this year, while updated spending data has supporters dominating the airwaves.

The survey, conducted by Braun Research for the Washington Post and George Mason University, finds that 52% of likely voters plan to support the amendment while 47% are opposed. Notably, the poll questionnaire used the exact language that will appear on ballots on April 21:

Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?

By contrast, the handful of other polls on this issue have either not presented the full text or any actual text at all.

Though Braun’s numbers indicate a close race, Republicans are not behaving as though they think they have much of a shot of defeating the amendment. According to AdImpact, the “yes” side has outspent “no” 10-to-1, a gulf of $33 million to just $3 million.

Even Republicans with the deepest of pockets are largely keeping their wallets shut. Virginia Scope’s Brandon Jarvis reports that former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, whose net worth Forbes estimated at $470 million in 2021, has contributed just $325,000 to the cause.

To put that in context, the median American was worth about $124,000 in 2024, according to a study from UBS. If such a person were to give as much proportionally as Youngkin—even making the unlikely assumption that his wealth has not increased in the last five years—their donation would amount to $86.

1Q Fundraising

• ID-Sen: Todd Achilles (I): $200,000 raised

• AL-Gov (March only):

  • Tommy Tuberville (R): $581,000 raised, $8.63 million cash on hand

  • Doug Jones (D): $175,000 raised, $951,000 cash on hand

• CO-Gov: Phil Weiser (D): $950,000 raised

• AZ-06: JoAnna Mendoza (D): $2.3 million raised

• IA-03: Sarah Trone Garriott (D): $1.67 million raised

• NJ-12: Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D): $144,000 raised

• NY-10: Brad Lander (D): $740,000 raised

• VA-01/VA-05: Shannon Taylor (D): $525,000 raised, $800,000 cash on hand

  • Taylor began challenging Republican Rep. Rob Wittman in the 1st District last year but has said she would run in the proposed 5th District if voters approve an amendment to allow a new congressional map.

• WI-01: Bryan Steil (R-inc): $1.3 million raised, $5.5 million cash on hand

Governors

CA-Gov

Billionaire Tom Steyer, who has spent at least $90 million of his personal fortune on his campaign for governor so far, is now directing his limitless war chest at a fellow Democrat, Rep. Eric Swalwell.

While outside groups have run ads attacking various aspirants for California’s open governorship—including Steyer himself—Steyer is the first candidate to go negative on a rival.

His newest ad, which was first obtained by Politico, goes after Swalwell for frequently missing votes in Congress, including votes on war powers, healthcare, and “ICE detention of children.”

It also slams him for a vote he did cast last year, a resolution condemning an antisemitic attack in Colorado that included a line expressing “gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland.”

That same resolution has reared its head in other races, such as last month’s Democratic primary for Illinois’ open Senate seat. In that contest, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton attacked Rep. Raja Krishnamoothi for voting in favor of the measure before going on to win the nomination in an upset.

House

MO-06

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins has reversed himself and now says that candidate filing will not be reopened in the 6th Congressional District because Republican Rep. Sam Graves withdrew from the race before a two-day window that would have triggered a state law giving potential contenders additional time to enter.

When Graves abandoned his bid for a 14th term on March 27—just before the March 31 filing deadline—Hoskins’ office informed The Downballot that the congressman’s late exit would extend the filing deadline until April 10, a rule designed to prevent last-minute shenanigans.

The statute in question specifies that extra time is added if a candidate exits “within two working days prior to the deadline for the close of filing.”

However, in a statement the secretary of state’s office shared with the Missouri Independent on April 3—a full week after its original determination—Hoskins concluded that the last two working days before the original deadline were March 30 and 31.

Because Graves filed a statement of withdrawal on March 27, his decision fell outside that timeframe. As a result, the field to succeed Graves in the conservative 6th District is now set, barring a legal challenge from a would-be candidate arguing that they intended to rely on Hoskins’ initial interpretation.

Even with the shortened timeframe, however, several Republicans managed to submit paperwork, though the contest is likely to come down to just two of them: radio host Chris Stigall, who swiftly earned Grave’s endorsement, and Kansas City Councilman Nathan Willett, who blasted the congressman for “ trying to hand pick the next person to come after him.”

Poll Pile

• AL-Sen (R): American Pulse Research & Polling:

  • Barry Moore: 26, Steve Marshall: 21, Jared Hudson: 14.

Editor’s Note: The previous Digest incorrectly stated the field dates for the poll of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. The poll was in the field Feb. 24-27.