AIPAC, pro-Israel groups celebrate Massie’s defeat in Kentucky after spending $9M

A prominent pro-Israel lobbying group is celebrating Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie’s defeat in a Republican primary as discourse over the conflict in the Middle East featured in the historically expensive race. 

What happened: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee congratulated challenger Ed Gallrein for defeating incumbent Massie on Tuesday night, saying, “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”

AIPAC doubled down on the sentiment on Wednesday after former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the organization of buying the election and referred to it as a “foreign lobby.”

"We back candidates who support the US-Israel partnership. Voters decide elections,” said AIPAC on X. 

Greene was referring to another post by AIPAC on Tuesday that celebrated the Republican primary victories of both Gallrein and Clay Fuller, who replaced Greene via a special election after she retired from Congress in April. 

AIPAC is one of the most prominent pro-Israel lobbying organizations in Washington.

Gallrein was also congratulated by the Republican Jewish Coalition and several pro-Israel accounts on X. 

Massie, who has served in Congress for seven terms, was defeated by former Navy SEAL Gallrein on Tuesday evening in the Republican primary race for Kentucky’s 4th congressional district. Gallrein received 54.9% of the vote to Massie’s 45.1%, according to the Associated Press. 

Massie had slipped in the polls in recent weeks amid his clashes with President Donald Trump, an alleged hush money scandal and big spending by both his campaign and his opponent’s.

In his concession speech Tuesday night, Massie took aim at the pro-Israel group’s support for Gallrein, saying, “I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.” On Thursday, he announced a bill that would require AIPAC to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Why it matters: Massie is a libertarian who supports a noninterventionist foreign policy and has clashed with his Republican peers on government spending, immigration and foreign policy. The lawmaker broke with the Trump administration and others in the Republican Party on US support for Israel and the Iran war in the lead-up to his defeat. In March, he co-authored a resolution to halt US military action against Iran until a formal declaration of war is made or Congress grants authority for the use of force. 

In January, Massie proposed amendments to the spending bill that he said would have cut $6.9 billion in aid to Israel, Egypt and Jordan. 

The New York Times and Politico reported this month that more than $32 million has been spent on primary in Massie’s district. The Times reported that two pro-Israel groups, including one tied to AIPAC, had spent more than $9 million on defeating Massie. The congressman had significant financial backing as well, and his supporters included Kentucky 4th PAC, which spent $6.5 million on him and has not disclosed any of its donors, according to the outlet.

Axios called the race “the most expensive US House primary in history” earlier this month, surpassing the 2024 New York House race in which AIPAC spent $14.5 million to defeat Jamaal Bowman, then one of the most vocal Israel critics in Congress. The outlet reported that the Republican Jewish Coalition spent $4 million on ads supporting Gallrein. 

Campaign ads in support of both men grew increasingly ugly as the race went on. One pro-Massie ad in May showed billionaire Gallrein donor Paul Singer in front of a rainbow Pride-colored Star of David. The ad said Gallrein is “bought and paid for by the LGBTQ mafia” and called Singer, who is Jewish and has a gay son, a “pro-trans billionaire.” 

One pro-Gallrein ad accused Massie of “cheating on America First with the Squad” and showed an AI-generated image of him holding hands with and walking alongside Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Omar and Ocasio-Cortez are both members of the so-called Squad of progressives in Congress. 

Massie regularly painted opposition to him as a result of pro-Israel lobbying and efforts by associates of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

”Within hours of the Epstein file release, a superPAC funded by Israel-first billionaires Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson, who himself appears in Epstein’s black book, bought another $800,000 of TV ads against me,” said Massie in a January post on X. 

Massie was endorsed by an ideologically diverse set of figures, including right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson and progressive Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna. Both are strong critics of Israel.

The congressman went against his party on a number of other issues not related to the Middle East, perhaps most notably when he voted against the so-called “big, beautiful bill” last July. The legislation, which was supported by Trump and signed into law that month, added billions of dollars in funding toward border security and the military and preserved tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term. Massie said the legislation did not sufficiently cut the federal deficit, the local Courier Journal reported at the time. 

His opposition to the bill angered Trump and many in his orbit. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 campaign manager, said in a post on X on Tuesday night that Massie had “failed” voters on lowering taxes and controlling the border. 

AIPAC is focused on a number of elections this cycle as criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian sentiment grows in both parties, and the lobby's candidates have received mixed results so far. Daniel Biss, a vocal critic of the war in Gaza, won the Democratic primary in Illinois' 9th congressional district over the AIPAC-backed Laura Fine and a number of other candidates. AIPAC has reportedly spent $22 million on races in the state this cycle. 

In 2024, AIPAC notably helped challenger Wesley Bell defeat incumbent Cori Bush, a member of the Squad, in the Democratic primary for Missouri's 1st congressional district. Bell went on to win the general election. 

What's next? Gallrein will face Democratic primary winner Melissa Strange in the November general election. Kentucky’s “sore loser” laws prevent Massie from running as an independent.