Thomas Massie Defeated By Israeli Lobby that Spent Over $25M Amid Curious Vote Results

by Responsible Statecraft and ZeroHedge

Representative Massie lost his re-election bid to a Trump-backed challenger, Ed Gallrein, in the Kentucky primary on May 20, 2026. Massie was out-spent in the most expensive congressional race in history. He referred to three pro-Israel billionaire donors—Paul Singer, Miriam Adelson (via her PAC), and John Paulson—as funding super PACs opposing him.

According to Grok, the $25M+ figure is total ad spending in this record House primary (per AdImpact), driven by those PACs plus AIPAC’s United Democracy Project and the Republican Jewish Coalition.

According to Track AIPAC, over $11 million was spent by pro-Israel PACS on Ed Gallerein. Over $1.4 million was spent by pro-Israel PACS on Senator Ted Cruz

Ryan Matta, a researcher and activist, suggested that there were anomalies when comparing voting trends to Massie’s past elections.

Ed Gallrein won the election by 10,280 votes. In 2022. Massie’s Challenger only got 16,573 votes and his challenger in 2024 got only 12,664 votes, but Ed Gallrein reportedly earned over 57,000 votes in this election while Massie received about 47,000 votes.

It appeared that less than 100 people attended Gallrein’s victory party.

Warning: Vulgar language

From Responsible Statecraft:

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) lost his bid for re-election to primary opponent Ed Gallrein 54% to 45% with nearly all votes counted on Tuesday night.

Massie’s defeat will no doubt be seen as a triumph of both the continued durability of pro-Israel forces in the party, as well as the president’s own ability to dictate outcomes in intra-party races. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who voted to impeach Donald Trump during his first term, lost his primary election over the weekend against a Trump-endorsed candidate.

Massie, who had served seven terms representing his state, is a fiscal conservative and libertarian. He had emerged during Trump’s first term as a rare Republican who stood up to the president, notably opposing Trump on his massive $2.2 trillion COVID spending bill. More recently he proposed and helped to pass a law in November opening the Epstein files, and then supported a series of war powers votes as a major critic of Trump’s war on Iran. Massie has also opposed bills that would provide aid to Israel for its own wars.

This drew Trump’s ire. The president called the Kentucky incumbent “Worst Congressman in the History of our Country,” in a series of social media posts hours before the primary. Trump has also called him a “moron,” “bum,” “obstructionist,” and a “fool.”

The race also attracted the attention of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the pro-Israel lobbying group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). PACs associated with both, with multi-million dollar contributions from powerful pro-Israel GOP donors Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson, helped it to become the most expensive primary election in the U.S. history. The two other most expensive primaries (in 2024) also featured AIPAC-backed candidates defeating incumbents (both Democrats) who were deemed to be too anti-Israel.

AIPAC praised Gallrein on Tuesday after the race was called. “Pro-Israel Americans are proud to back candidates who support a strong [U.S.-Israel] alliance and help defeat those who work to undermine it,” they wrote on X. “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!” The group’s super PAC had called Massie “the most anti-Israel Republican in the House.”

In his concession speech, Massie poked fun at the relationship, saying that he would have conceded earlier, “but I had to call my opponent (…) and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s voting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth campaigned for Gallrein, saying that he would “vote with [Trump] when it matters the most,” unlike Massie, who had, in the secretary’s words “acted like his job is to stand apart from the movement that President Trump leads.”

The Best “Go Paid” Deal on Substack! You Get REAL Stuff!!

Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the https://artofliberty.org/store/.

Go paid at the $50 a year level, and we will send you a free paperback edition of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many OR “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! OR a 64GB Liberator flash drive if you live in the US. If you are international, we will give you a $10 credit towards shipping if you agree to pay the remainder.

Support us at the $250 Founding Member Level and get a signed high-resolution hardcover of “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! + Liberator flash drive + a signed high-resolution hardcover of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many + everything else in our “Everything Bundle” of the best in voluntaryist thought delivered domestically. International pays shipping. Our only option for signed copies besides catching Etienne @ an event.