Trump ousts Massie, and other takeaways from Tuesday’s primary elections

By Eric Bradner, Arit John, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s retribution campaign steamrolled another Republican rival on Tuesday, with a Trump-backed challenger ousting one of the president’s leading intra-party antagonists, Rep. Thomas Massie, in a Kentucky primary.

Former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein’s win over Massie continued a May political payback tour that has seen Trump take down five Indiana state senators who voted against his redistricting push two weeks ago, and two-term Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to impeach Trump in 2021, on Saturday.

It was one of two key races on Kentucky’s primary ballots in which Trump demonstrated his lasting influence with Republican voters.

Kentucky’s polls were the first to close on a day in which Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Oregon and Pennsylvania were also holding primaries.

Here are takeaways from Tuesday’s contests:

Trump topples ‘terrible’ Massie

Trump has vowed retribution against a number of Republicans over slights real and perceived. But years of battles over spending, the Jeffrey Epstein files, the United States’ support for Israel and more led the president to take Massie’s primary particularly personally.

“Thomas Massie is a terrible congressman. He’s been a terrible congressman from day one. Dealing with him is just horrible. I don’t think he’s a Republican. I think he’s actually, I think he’s actually a Democrat,” Trump said Tuesday.

The president personally visited Kentucky in March, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a highly unusual trip to the district on Monday to campaign alongside Gallrein and urge voters to send Trump “reinforcements” in Congress, where the GOP is seeking to hold onto its narrow majority in November’s midterm elections.

In Kentucky’s 4th District, which has routinely elected Massie by about 30 percentage points, voters took Trump’s side on Tuesday.

Massie’s loss is a reminder for Republicans in Washington and statehouses across the country that even with Trump’s approval rating slipping into the mid-30s and one of his most reliable demographics turning on the president, he is the party’s leader, he holds the power to force those who don’t follow him to pay a steep political price and he is eager to wield it.

The race was one of the most expensive primaries in history, with $19 million being spent on advertising supporting Gallrein and $14 million on pro-Massie ads.

How Trump lifted Barr to nomination for McConnell’s seat

Retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell was once a political titan — the most powerful Republican in the nation and long a dominant force in Kentucky politics. But Trump soured on him when McConnell refused to parrot Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and on Tuesday, McConnell’s reign ended with a whimper.

In the Republican primary to replace McConnell, Trump’s pick, Rep. Andy Barr, defeated former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron — who was once seen as McConnell’s political protege and rising star within the party, though that star shined less brightly after Cameron lost the 2023 governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear.

Trump didn’t just endorse Barr. He further cleared his path to the nomination by convincing another top contender, businessman Nate Morris, to drop his campaign and accept an ambassadorship.

All three candidates got their start in politics interning for McConnell. But the primary showed just how much McConnell’s influence has faded in recent years. Cameron had turned on McConnell and fully embraced Trump during the primary. And McConnell, in turn, had not endorsed a candidate.

Barr’s nomination positions him as the overwhelming favorite to become Kentucky’s next senator. And if he wins, it will mark the replacement of a powerful voice that has at times broken from Trump with a staunch presidential ally on Capitol Hill next year.

Georgia GOP governor primary heads to runoff

The GOP race to replace term-limited Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is headed to a June 16 runoff after no candidate cleared the 50% threshold on Tuesday.

Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones will take on businessman Rick Jackson in the head-to-head.

The two topped a pair of statewide elected officials: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, whose national profile rose after he refused to back Trump’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 election, and Attorney General Chris Carr.

The winner could face Democratic former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in November. That primary has not yet been called, but the major question is whether she will top 50% and avoid a runoff.

The Republican primary to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is also going into overtime — with Rep. Mike Collins claiming one of the two spots in the runoff. Derek Dooley, the former football coach endorsed by Kemp, and Rep. Buddy Carter are battling for the second spot in the June 16 contest.

The winner will face a tall test in November: Ossoff’s campaign already has $32 million in the bank.

Cornyn next?

Another chance for Trump to flex his influence — and reshape the GOP’s Senate majority in his image — looms in Texas, where Trump on Tuesday endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton in his May 26 Senate primary runoff against four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.

Trump’s endorsement of Paxton, a controversial figure with a long history of scandals who has aligned himself with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, comes despite warnings from prominent Republicans that doing so could put the party at risk of losing the race to Democratic nominee James Talarico in November.

Cornyn responded to Trump’s endorsement of Paxton by noting on social media he had voted with the president 99% of the time.

But he partnered with Democrats in 2022 to pass gun safety legislation, and was slow to get in line behind Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Paxton, meanwhile, rushed to court in 2020 to contest the presidential election. And Trump made clear that he was looked for personal loyalty.

In his Truth Social post endorsing Paxton, Trump called the attorney general “someone who has always been extremely loyal to me and our AMAZING MAGA MOVEMENT.”

He said Cornyn is a “good man,” but added that he “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

An early glimpse at Shapiro’s potential 2028 message

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is up for reelection this year. But his primary night speech in Bucks County sure sounded like it contained the bones of a stump speech he could deliver often in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.

Shapiro repeatedly contrasted his accomplishments in the marquee presidential swing state with the “chaos, cruelty, and corruption” he said is coming from Trump and his administration.

He criticized Trump’s Medicaid spending cuts. He attacked Trump over the war with Iran, which he said Trump “was wrong to get into, and has no idea how to get out of” and has sent gas prices soaring. He said Trump’s tariffs “have made everything cost more.”

“Instead of bringing down costs as he promised, Trump and his enablers are pinching the middle class and then saying he doesn’t care ‘even a little bit,’” he said, referring to Trump’s comments last week when the president was asked whether Americans’ financial situations are motivating his negotiations with Iran. “That’s cruel — and we experience his cruelty here in Pennsylvania every day.”

Shapiro also accused Trump of “unmatched corruption,” and said his administration’s “entire goal” is to enrich Trump’s allies and “shield them all from paying the price for his conduct.”

And he painted Pennsylvania as “the antidote” to Trump’s graft. Shapiro argued that four Republican-held US House seats that Democrats are targeting in November could be the key to swapping “a Congress of weak sycophants” now led by Republicans for a Democratic majority that he said would “bring some accountability back to our nation’s capital.”

Democrats get their candidates in four key races

Pennsylvania Democrats hope that the path to winning back the US House runs through the Keystone State. Now they have their candidates.

Bob Brooks, the president of the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association, built a broad coalition of state and national-level supporters ahead of Tuesday’s primary. He ran as an everyman, arguing he was best suited to win back working-class voters in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District.

But he still faced a crowded primary field that included former Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell and energy engineer Carol Obando-Derstine, who was recruited into the race by the district’s former Democratic Rep. Susan Wild.

Brooks will face freshman GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in November.

The retired firefighter is one of four candidates endorsed by Shapiro, who campaigned with Brooks in the district earlier this week. The governor is also supporting Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie in Pennsylvania’s 1st District, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in the 8th District, and former television news anchor Janelle Stelson in the 10th District. Harvie and Stelson won less competitive primaries while Cognetti ran unopposed.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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