Trump Celebrates Massie’s Record Primary Defeat as 37% Approval Deepens GOP Midterm Fears
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · May 23
Trump Celebrates Massie’s Record Primary Defeat as 37% Approval Deepens GOP Midterm Fears
5 articles · Updated · The Guardian · May 23
At a White House picnic Tuesday, Donald Trump boasted “we won the Massie thing” after Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie lost the most expensive congressional primary in US history to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein.
Massie’s defeat extends Trump’s purge of Republican dissenters, with recent casualties also including Senator Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and five Indiana state senators who resisted his demands on congressional maps.
That revenge campaign may complicate Trump’s agenda: Massie vowed to keep pressing on Epstein-related disclosures in his final seven months, and Cassidy already helped pass a Democratic war-powers resolution on Iran after losing.
Razor-thin Republican majorities in the House and Senate leave Trump reliant on lawmakers he has politically torched, even as some allies and former allies break with him over spending, foreign policy and the Epstein files.
The broader risk is electoral: Trump’s approval has fallen to 37%, and Republicans trail Democrats 39% to 50% on the generic congressional ballot ahead of November’s midterms.
What does the outcome of closed primaries signal about future general election campaign strategies?
How does record-breaking primary spending affect the types of candidates who ultimately win elections?