Thomas Massie loses in Kentucky. What happens next?

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

HEBRON, Kentucky—On election night here, Thomas Massie was repeatedly and loudly cheered by jubilant supporters who urged him to run for president. With a broad smile, he took in the scene and basked in the adulation of a crowd that viewed him as a hero. Massie even chugged a celebratory glass of raw milk.

There was only one thing truly odd about all of it. He lost.

With over 95 percent of precincts reporting, Massie—the incumbent in the Republican primary in this House district in northern Kentucky—lost by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent, defeated in a district he’d held almost effortlessly since he first cruised to victory in a special election in 2012.

Massie’s race was comparatively close, considering the fates of other Republicans who have defied Donald Trump. Only three days before, two-term Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy finished third in his primary bid for reelection, earning less than 25 percent of the vote after Trump had denounced him for supporting the president’s impeachment in 2021. The Kentucky incumbent had built his own quirky libertarian brand over the years that endeared him to many on the right. Unlike most other Republicans whom Trump had tried to oust in primary challenges, it was hard to characterize Massie as a RINO.

Nominally, Massie was defeated by Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL and failed state Senate candidate who now, thanks to the district’s deep-red nature, is a shoo-in to win a House seat in November. But Massie’s real opponent in the race was Trump. His repeated defiance of the president and Republican leadership on matters great and small had made him persona non grata with the MAGA-era GOP. It also alienated voters in the district who had long supported him. For them, his repeated insistence on breaking with the GOP left them wanting a party regular in his stead.

Kelly Hall had a long goatee and was wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Government Watch List” when he went to vote on Tuesday. The Hebron, Kentucky, resident told Slate he had voted for Gallrein because he “wanted to try something different.”

A former Massie supporter, Hall said the incumbent “was sneaking around with the Democrats and doing that stuff. You can have your opinion on this and that, but it’s life and death.”

He specifically cited Massie’s teaming up with Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, on the release of the Epstein files. Hall thought the files named people who just happened to be there incidentally, which the voter described as “horrible.” Hall added, “Him voting against border walls and all the stuff that’s common sense—you got to go, man.”

Dave Ruhland of Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, told Slate that he thought Massie “was being a contrarian just to be a contrarian.” He said, “I think he’s searching for an MSNBC gig.”

But Massie’s resistance to Trump, doomed though it ultimately was, owes less to any support from the MSNBC set than it does to an emerging faction on the right. It is a coalition similar to that which powered Ron Paul to national attention in 2008 and 2012 and comprises those on the hard right who have become disenchanted with Trump, as well as those more libertarian-minded Republicans who have never been natural allies of the president. After all, while Trump has launched a conflict with Iran, the crowd at Massie’s concession speech chanted, “America First, America First!” and “No War, No War!”

Attendees also shouted “End the Fed!” and a copy of Paul’s book of the same name was waved in the air prominently, along with Massie signs and American flags.

Massie openly criticized Trump as well, taking a shot at the president’s plans to build a White House ballroom. “While gas is almost $5 a gallon and diesel is almost $6, they’re talking about this big ballroom. … It looks like the Roman Empire. I see a few analogies there.”

Ryan Moehring of Hebron was a Massie voter who was reflective of this faction. Walking out of the polling place holding his son, Moehring said of Trump: “I loved him in 2016, but I don’t like him now.” The Kentucky voter cited “all of the influence that AIPAC has on our government,” name-checking the pro-Israel lobby group. “I don’t think it’s run by the American people,” he said as he explained his support for Massie and disenchantment with Trump. He also cited the incumbent’s libertarian views.

Long after Massie left the stage, the mood around the hotel where his election night party was held remained cheery. The open bar with beer and wine stayed open. Even if the free pizza was gone, attendees were still lining up for pretzel bites and beer cheese.

It may have represented the end of Massie’s stint in Congress, but it may too represent the coalescing of a new faction in Republican politics. Along with the usual assortment of local Kentucky supporters, the crowd at Massie’s event included an eclectic mix. There were a score of influencers who had come from across the country to support his campaign, there were libertarians stopping in Kentucky on their way to their party’s national convention in Michigan, and there were also figures like former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes floating around.

Like the Ron Paul coalition it resembles (and shares a lot of crossover with), it may not be more than a loud minority within the GOP, bigger on podcasts than in legislatures. But it does symbolize the potential nucleus of a new point of resistance to the Trumpist establishment in the GOP, one that not so much harks back to a Reaganesque past as looks to a future where voters can drink raw milk while being transported in their self-driving Teslas. At a moment when Trump has seemingly quashed all dissent with the party, successfully ousting both Massie and Cassidy in less than a week, it signifies a potential new fissure opening within the GOP.

And for those at Massie’s election night, that seemed as much worth celebrating as anything.