Two weeks ago, five incumbent Indiana state senators “weren’t just defeated,” as NBC’s Steve Kornacki explained, “they were defeated in landslides.”
The five had bucked President Trump’s call to redraw the state’s congressional map, blocking the creation of two additional Republican-leaning districts and drawing the ire of the president and his supporters, who got behind their opponents.
On Saturday in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a 12-year Republican incumbent, became the first elected U.S. Senator to lose in a primary since 2012. Again, Dr. Cassidy wasn’t simply eclipsed by a challenger; he came in a distant third place with less than 25 percent of the vote. Cassidy was one of seven GOP Senators who found Mr. Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial, following the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.*
I cannot recall a president of either party ever wielding so much electoral clout within his own party — perhaps partly because other presidents did not attempt to reshape their party as aggressively as Trump has, and partly because no president has enjoyed the outsider status required to mobilize the disgruntled grassroots.
Today, Kentucky’s Republican Primary offers another stop on what the media has dubbed “Trump’s revenge tour.” The Bluegrass State’s 4th congressional district sports 14-year incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie facing Trump-endorsed challenger Ed Gallrein, a businessman and former Navy SEAL, in “the most expensive House primary on record.”
President Trump called Massie “a third rate Grandstander” in 2020 but then endorsed Massie in 2022. After Massie’s opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the Iran War, tariffs, and support for releasing the Epstein files, Trump has gone after him.
Latest polling shows “the race to be evenly deadlocked,” but if anyone can withstand the Trump onslaught, it may be Massie . . . who is so thoroughly not a Washington insider.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Of the other six U.S. Senate Republicans, four chose not to seek reelection (Sasse, Neb.; Burr, N.C.; Toomey, Penn.; Romney, Utah), while Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski won re-election in 2022, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine is on this November’s ballot.
Illustration created with Nano Banana
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts