Ed Gallrein has won the Republican nomination for Kentucky’s fourth congressional District, beating incumbent Thomas Massie. Trump-backed Gallrein’s victory comes as Kentucky voters have also nominated Trump-endorsed Andy Barr in his race to fill the seat Mitch McConnell will vacate when he retires next year.
Here’s my colleague David Smith with more on Gallrein’s victory:
Donald Trump displayed his supremacy over the Republican party on Tuesday when voters in northern Kentucky rejected the maverick congressman Thomas Massie in favour of the US president’s hand-picked challenger.
Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy Seal. farmer who was recruited into the race by Trump, defeated the seven-term incumbent in a primary election in Kentucky’s fourth congressional district in what the president’s allies framed as a test of whether dissent could still exist inside today’s Republican party.
The election took place as voters in five other states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon. Idaho – went to the polls on Tuesday, to decide their nominees for the November general election in what was the biggest primary night of the year so far. Earlier on Tuesday. Trump endorsed Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general running for Senate, in a primary runoff against incumbent John Cornyn, infuriating some in his party.
In Kentucky, Massie now joins the ranks of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney. other elected Republicans who were either ousted or decided to retire because of their party’s capitulation to Trump.
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Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
Thomas Massie lost his House primary to Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein. Kentucky voters also nominated Trump-endorsed Andy Barr in his race to fill the seat Mitch McConnell will vacate when he retires next year. Trump administration officials said they have sent a message with Thomas Massie’s election loss while Massie suggested in his concession remarks. he’ll push back even harder against Donald Trump during his remaining time in office.
Other election results poured in as polls closed in Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Idaho and Oregon. Among the most notable: US senator Tommy Tuberville won the Republican nomination for Alabama governor, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Democratic nomination for governor in Georgia. state representative Chris Rabb won the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania’s third congressional district. In Georgia, lieutenant governor Burt Jones. healthcare executive Rick Jackson will advance to a runoff in the Republican primary for the governor’s race, while congressmen Mike Collins and Derek Dooley will advance to a runoff for the Republican nomination to compete against Democrat Jon Ossoff for his senate seat this November.
Some election results are still forthcoming. In Alabama. for example, Barry Moore will advance to a runoff election in his bid for the Republican nomination for Tommy Tuberville’s Senate seat – although it’s currently unclear who he will run against.
The Senate voted to debate a war powers resolution. could end the war in Iran after Republican senator Bill Cassidy changed his vote to side with Democrats. Cassidy’s change of tune comes just days after he lost his primary election to a competitor Donald Trump endorsed. Cassidy lost the president’s support after he voted in favor of Trump’s conviction after the January 6 insurrection.
The IRS will not pursue back taxes from Donald Trump. his family or his companies under an addendum quietly added today to the settlement agreement that created a loosely controlled $1.776bn fund to compensate allies of the president. The arrangement was announced after Trump said he was dropping a $10bn lawsuit against the IRS. other specious claims against the government in exchange for creating the compensation fund.
Trump endorsed hardliner Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in a critical Texas US Senate race runoff. This has boosted the Texas attorney general’s chances of securing his party’s nomination for the Texas race in November’s midterm elections.
Trump told reporters he is giving Iran until the weekend or early next week. to make a deal to end the war. He said that yesterday he was within an hour of deciding to resume bombing Iran. that his negotiators had reported progress in talks.
When JD Vance was asked questions about the $1.8bn slush fund being available to people who attacked the Capitol building. police officers on January 6, he defended the fund, said anybody could apply for it and said claims would be investigated on a case-by-case basis.
Todd Blanche. the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. He also defended the $1.8bn slush fund citing transparency for beneficiaries.
Police are investigating a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime, after three people were killed. two suspects, also dead, were identified near the scene. Democratic leaders from across the country issued statements in the wake of the shooting calling out Islamophobia. advocating for stricter gun laws.
The United States will shrink the pool of military forces available to assist Nato allies in a crisis. Reuters reports, citing three sources familiar with the matter. The US is expected to share the news with its European allies on Friday. In similar news. the Pentagon will reduce the number of brigade combat teams assigned to Europe from four to three, according to a social media post from a defense department spokesperson.
Idaho governor Brad Little has won the Republican nomination in his bid for re-election. while attorney Terri Pickens has won the Democratic nomination.
In solidly red Idaho, Little is expected to win the general election in November.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) congratulated Ed Gallrein on winning the Republican nomination for Kentucky’s House seat from congressman Thomas Massie.
“Massie has been one of the most consistently hostile voices in Congress toward the US-Israel relationship. the millions of Americans who support it. Our community was proud to support Gallrein and help ensure Massie’s defeat,” the organization said in a statement.
Aipac also congratulated other pro-Israel candidates, including Clay Fuller, who is running to fill Marjorie Taylor Greene ’s vacant seat. “With tonight’s victories. more than 105 Aipac-backed candidates from both parties will have advanced to the general election this cycle,” the organization added.
Congressmen Mike Collins. Derek Dooley will advance to a runoff for the Republican nomination to compete against Democrat Jon Ossoff for his Georgia Senate seat this November.
Georgia governor Brian Kemp has endorsed Dooley,. Donald Trump has not yet thrown his support behind any Republican candidate in the race.
The Ossoff campaign had its own words to share about the Republican competitors when the race was called:
“After Brian Kemp’s crushing refusal to run for Senate, Trump puppets Collins. Dooley have made themselves terminally inseparable from the toxic president,” said Ellie Dougherty, the Ossoff campaign’s communications director. “Now the failed congressman who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman. the failed coach who was only a coach because his daddy was a coach limp into a monthlong race-to-the-bottom that will surely leave both broke and unelectable. Meanwhile, the juggernaut Ossoff campaign will continue building insurmountable momentum to win decisively in November.”
Within minutes of polls closing in Oregon, the Associated Press has called two races: Democratic senator Jeff Merkley. governor Tina Kotek have both won their party’s nomination for re-election.
Polls have now closed in Oregon.
As my colleague, Chris Stein reminds us:
Blue-state Oregon lacks much in the way of competitive House. Senate seats, and changes in its federal delegation are unlikely this year. The most closely watched race may be its gubernatorial primary. where the Democratic governor, Tina Kotek, is vying for a second term amid lackluster approval ratings. Nine Democrats have filed to run against her, while 14 Republicans are standing in their primary. Among them is Chris Dudley, a former NBA player who won nearly 48% of the vote when he made an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2010; Christine Drazan, a state senator; state representative Ed Diehl;. Danielle Bethell, a county commissioner.
In a solidly blue Philadelphia district, Chris Rabb is all. certain to win the general election for the House of Representatives seat.
“Chris Rabb is exactly what Democratic voters nationwide are demanding – progressive trailblazers who fight for their communities, not just when it’s politically convenient but when it’s morally necessary,” said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, a political action committee that championed Pramila Jayapal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar. Rashida Tlaib and other progressive Democrats. “While the party machine has spent decades failing to meet the needs of its voters, Rabb has taken the fight to corporate interests, billionaire CEOs. Republican extremists his whole career.”
Here’s my colleague Joseph Gedeon with more on Rabb:
Chris Rabb, a state representative – endorsed by the congressional progressive caucus, Justice Democrats. the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board – is running an unapologetically leftwing, grassroots campaign that backs universal healthcare, universal basic income, publicly owned grocery stores, removing big money from politics and ending US military aid to Israel following what he describes as a genocide in Gaza and apartheid in Palestine.
Vowing to end “business as usual” in Washington. Rabb has raised about twice as much as both his main competitors in the primary. “The ideology of machine politics is incumbency and concentration of power,” he said. “I am an aggressively anti-establishment Democrat.”
Former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has won the Democratic nomination for governor in Georgia. Bottoms will advance to the general election. where she’ll run against either healthcare executive Rick Jackson or lieutenant governor Burt Jones pending the results of a runoff for the Republican nomination.
Bottoms hopes to win a position no Democrat has held in more than two decades.
During his remarks conceding his race this evening. Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie suggested he’ll push back even harder against Donald Trump during his remaining time in office.
“Today is the six-month anniversary of the Epstein Files Transparency Act,” he said. “We’ve taken out two dozen CEOs, an ambassador, a prince, a prime minister, a minister of culture –. that was just six months. I’ve got seven months left in Congress.”
Massie’s suggestion. he’ll play tough with the president echoed senator Bill Cassidy’s move earlier today to side with Democrats on a war powers resolution after losing his re-election bid to a Trump-backed opponent.
Election results from Fulton county, Georgia, will be delayed after issues at the polls.
According to the county, two precincts will remain open until 11.02pm local time to ensure everyone can vote. The county will not release election results until “all polls have closed”, it said in a social media post.
The heavily Democratic county has long been at the center of Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020,. the FBI raided the county’s election office in February.
Polls in parts of Idaho are closing now. The state is covered by two time zones. polls will close in the rest of the state in an hour, when polls in Oregon close as well. Here’s my colleague Chris Stein again on the races we’re watching there:
Idaho is one of the most Republican states in the nation,. the GOP is expected to once against sweep its House and Senate seats this year. Governor Brad Little is vying for a third term in office against nine primary challengers,. has outraised all of them. The situation is the same for Senator Jim Risch, who has three primary challengers but far more cash than any of them,. viewed as unlikely to lose either his primary, or the general election.
The US representative Mike Collins, an immigration hardliner. Maga enthuasiast, advanced to the runoff for the Republican nomination for Georgia’s US Senate seat.
It is not yet clear whom Collins will run against. the US representative Buddy Carter or the former football coach Derek Dooley.
Republicans hope to unseat the senator Jon Ossoff, a young Democrat and strong fundraiser.
US senator Tommy Tuberville has handily won the Republican nomination for Alabama governor. Tuberville has aligned himself closely with Donald Trump since his election to the Senate in 2020,. received the president’s endorsement.
Tuberville will face former senator Doug Jones in the general election. Jones lost his Senate seat to Tuberville in 2020 by a margin of about 20 points.
Donald Trump twisted the knife against outgoing US representative Thomas Massie. who lost the Republican primary race in Kentucky to White House-backed challenger Ed Gallrein.
“He was a bad guy,” Trump said in comments recorded by CBS News. “He deserved to lose.”
Former broadcast anchor Janelle Stelson has won the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district. teeing her up to take on incumbent Republican representative Scott Perry in November.
Here’s my colleague Shrai Popat with more context on the race:
A group of Republicans in Pennsylvania are relaunching their efforts to unseat Congressman Scott Perry. the fervent Trump ally who represents the state’s 10th congressional district, according to plans first provided to the Guardian.
The “Republicans Against Perry” (Rap) group began in late 2023. backing the congressman’s Democratic opponent, Janelle Stelson, who ended up losing by less than two points in the 2024 election. Now, Rap is restarting their grassroots campaign on Thursday, which includes a slew of electronic billboards throughout the district.
In an address celebrating his victory, Ed Gallrein said his focus was now “on advancing the president’s. the party’s agenda to put America first, and Kentucky always ”.
He also thanked his supporters, military colleagues and the Future Farmers of America.
Lieutenant governor Burt Jones. healthcare executive Rick Jackson will advance to a runoff in the Republican primary for the Georgia’s governor’s race.
Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state who defied Trump’s efforts to meddle in the 2020 election,. attorney general Chris Carr were also prominent contenders who did not receive enough votes to proceed to the runoff.
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