Just five days after Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, denounced the war in Iran, his party’s leading outreach group for Jewish voters released a provocative ad targeting him over the issue.
“Thomas Massie: He stands with Iran and radical leftists in Congress opposing Trump,” a narrator speaking in an ominous voice says in the ad, which shows an American flag burning and a parade of warheads.
But if Mr. Massie, an outspoken critic of President Trump who is running for re-election against a Trump-backed challenger, was alarmed by the commercial, he did not show it. Instead, the congressman posted the ad on his own X account, hoping to use it as a fund-raising appeal at a moment when he says he is being badly outspent by the opposition.
The May primary election was already a high-profile test of Mr. Trump’s ability to oust a Republican who had crossed him on a range of topics. Now, it is also shaping up as one indicator of Republican attitudes toward the Iran conflict, which the U.S. and Israel entered together.
The G.O.P. has largely rallied around Mr. Trump’s decision to attack Iran, even as the broader American public appears more skeptical. Mr. Massie, a long-popular figure in a conservative but independent-minded section of Kentucky, has found himself in a lonely position as he faces down national opposition descending on his district along the Ohio River.
“I may be on the wrong side of polling right now,” Mr. Massie said in an interview. “But I think I’ll eventually be shown to be right on this, and the American people will come around, too.”
Mr. Massie, a libertarian with a contrarian streak, was a rare Republican to split with Mr. Trump over the war. Only one House Republican, Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio, joined Mr. Massie in supporting a failed measure last week to force the president to go to Congress for approval to continue using force against Iran.
As Mr. Massie braces for the fight of his political life against Ed Gallrein, a farmer who has pledged fealty to the president, he has sought to reframe the race, saying it is not simply between him and Mr. Gallrein, but between him and groups, including the Republican Jewish Coalition, that want to “make an example” out of him.
“My Republican colleagues, over and over, are being forced to choose between President Trump’s position now and his position on the campaign trail,” Mr. Massie said, referring to Mr. Trump’s 2024 pledge to avoid new military conflicts. “And I’m sticking with his positions on the campaign trail.”
In a statement, Mr. Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, praised Mr. Trump’s handling of the war, and said his own military career had taught him that swift “action, clear objectives, and overwhelming strength save American lives and prevent larger wars.”
“Our district deserves a congressman who stands with the voters who overwhelmingly support President Trump and the Republican Party,” added Mr. Gallrein, whose campaign did not make him available for an interview.
Representative Andy Barr, a Republican from a neighboring district who has endorsed Mr. Gallrein, said in a statement that Kentucky needed a “fighter to help President Trump” and that Mr. Massie’s war-powers vote “would have weakened our Commander-in-Chief and handed a gift to our enemies.”
Mr. Trump is scheduled to appear in the district at an event with Mr. Gallrein on Wednesday, said Alexandra Wilkes, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gallrein’s campaign. The Louisville Courier Journal previously reported on the planned visit. (The White House did not immediately respond to inquiries about the event.)
Most Republican voters appear to be behind the president. One poll, from NPR, PBS and Marist University, found that while 86 percent of Democrats opposed the U.S. military action, 84 percent of Republicans supported it. But volatility in the Middle East, a lack of clarity about the duration of American involvement and emerging pockets of conservative criticism have created uncertainty about how or if public opinion on the war might change over time.
Robin L. Webb, a Republican state senator whose northeastern Kentucky district overlaps with Mr. Massie’s congressional district, said that support for the war in Iran appeared to be falling along partisan lines in the region, and that Mr. Massie was probably at odds with most local Republican voters.
The ad “might resonate with the demographic — there’s no doubt about that,” she said. But Ms. Webb, who is supporting Mr. Massie, laughed at its content, saying it was a “stretch” to argue that Mr. Massie was aligned with the “radical left.”
Another Republican state senator in Mr. Massie’s district, Gex Williams, said he both strongly supported Mr. Trump’s handling of the conflict and planned to vote for Mr. Massie.
“I disagree with Massie on the war,” Mr. Williams said. “But I still want him to be my congressman.”
Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and CNN analyst who lives in Mr. Massie’s district, predicted that the ad would leave a significant mark on an intraparty battle that appears to be close. Mr. Massie has never before faced Mr. Trump’s full wrath, nor such spending headwinds, said Mr. Jennings, who has not publicly expressed a preference in the race.
The Republican Jewish Coalition, whose political arm has run a series of ads attacking Mr. Massie, said the ad was part of a $2.9 million investment, though it did not specify what portion of that sum it accounted for, and that it was appearing on TV this weekend. The organization’s ad spending has outpaced the Gallrein campaign’s own advertising investments, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.
Republicans who cross Mr. Trump have done so at their own peril.
Last week in Texas, Representative Dan Crenshaw, who broke with the president over his 2020 election denialism, was defeated by a hard-right insurgent after Mr. Trump declined to choose a side in the primary.
Mr. Massie has been especially vocal in criticizing the president, and he was a leading Republican voice last year in pushing the administration to release the Epstein files.
Whitney Westerfield, a Republican former Kentucky state lawmaker, said that Mr. Massie has a unique pull on his district, and that its “streak of Republicanism is different from the rest of the red parts of the state.”
Still, even Mr. Massie acknowledged that this time might be different, with a week-old war unsettling the contours of his contest. His position on the war has “definitely created an uphill battle,” he said.
“I feel confident that I’ve got the constitutional position right,” Mr. Massie added. “And I’m hopeful that the politics will follow later.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/us/politics/massie-republicans-trump-iran-war-midterms.html
