Why Massie Lost
No, It's Not the Joozes!
Many people are scratching their heads while MAGA country is cheering wildly at Congressman Tom Massie’s defeat in a Republican primary. Much of the commentary is off-base.
With Republican-dominated states doing midterm redistricting, Republicans are basically being given “free election wins” in Congressional races. This has freed up a lot of donor funds, yet PACs were now trying to reconfigure what candidates to endorse under the new districts. I am cynical of this redistricting because it reeks of zero-sum thinking, but it did release a lot of funds to be merely dumped in any election they thought could be won.
With all the freed-up money, Massie was buried in a negative ad campaign he could not recover from (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/17/massie-aipac-record-spending-israel-maga-trump-primary-00925375). Once the Trump Administration focused on defeating Massie, Trump allies funded the defeat, such as MAGA KY PAC (https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00908723/). With MAGA KY PAC taking the lead, other political action committees became sharks in the water smelling blood and dumped more funds into defeating Massie. Unfortunately, much money was wasted but Massie is defeated.
Massie had also angered other Trump advisors, such as the always well-reasoned but visceral conservative Stephen Miller, taking Massie on (https://www.lifezette.com/2026/05/stephen-miller-destroys-thomas-massie-for-siding-with-democrats-on-ice-funding-watch/). Funding of ICE has been a crucial focus of the Trump Administration and Miller was tearing into Massie on the topic.
Some are blaming the fake ID videos run by the anti-Massie camp but the ads made the overall impression of Massie having odd bedfellows (https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/may/18/real-real-deep-fake-political-ads-fooling-older-americans/). The amount of money put behind such ads drove the central points of the Trump Administration but you had to see the ad (https://bsky.app/profile/joesonka.lpm.org/post/3mkzwztdtac2i).
Massie will not disappear from politics and will stay engaged. He may even be more influential in the private sector compared to being in elected office.
I'm not happy that Massie lost, but he had a dramatic change after his wife died. Some of his positions didn't make sense. Purists almost never succeed in Congress. That being said, I'd rather he won. Too many in Congress are complacent or rebellious just to stick it to Trump. I believe that Massie had an honest core that was worth keeping.
Do you believe all of the scandalous sexual stories against Massie that came out in the final week leading up to the primary?
If so… I have got a whopper to tell you about Charles Herbster!
Old Herbie wasn’t my top choice but that was one hell of a successful character assassination on the leading gubernatorial candidate in Nebraska 4 years ago… only to have the allegations magically disappear after we got ‘weak on everything’ Pillen.
I can’t recall where you came down on that one, so you are either nodding in agreement or shaking your head.