President Donald Trump scored a personal victory on Tuesday evening when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a lawmaker who has been a thorn in his side for months, was defeated by MAGA-endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in the GOP primary for Kentucky's 4th Congressional District — but this may soon prove a "Pyrrhic victory," The Washington Post's editorial board warned.
That's because Trump is creating an environment in which vulnerable incumbent GOP lawmakers around the country are too terrified to distance themselves from him, the board argued — at a moment when Trump's name is more toxic than it has ever been with voters.
The board, while lauding Massie's commitment to reining in the national debt, had a somewhat tainted political obituary for him.
"Being a gadfly limited Massie’s effectiveness. He cast countless no votes and built his own brand rather than a broader coalition to make progress on issues he cared about. While he was right about America’s unsustainable finances, it’s for the best that some of his other views didn’t gain wider acceptance," wrote the board. "He was the only House Republican to vote against a resolution condemning antisemitism. Reasonable people might oppose U.S. aid to Israel, but Massie too often did so with over-the-top, even conspiratorial, rhetoric."
Despite all of that, the board wrote, Trump's crusade against him could end up coming back to blow up in his face.
"This could become a curse for the party in the midterms," wrote the board. "The president received 67 percent of the vote in Massie’s district in 2024, and Gallrein will easily keep the seat red this fall. But control of the House in the midterms will not be decided by seats like this one. Typically, incumbents up for reelection in swing districts would be distancing themselves from a president as unpopular as Trump. But few are doing so because they worry about depressed turnout should the president turn on them. Massie’s defeat will only sharpen that instinct."
The bottom line, concluded the board, is that "Trump may prefer to be feared than loved by Republican lawmakers, but that will cost his party."
