A GOP primary has become a costly battle over Israel. Will it matter in the long run?

Pro-Israel groups are spending millions to unseat Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, but his defeat may not be dead end for GOP opponents of Israel, whose numbers seem to be growing

A closely-watched Republican congressional primary, taking place on Tuesday after breaking fundraising records, is like a bingo card of recent American — and American Jewish — political discourse.

The election is centered on support for Israel and US President Donald Trump. Jewish groups and donors have spent heavily on the campaign. Both sides are running ads with AI deepfakes. Tucker Carlson has weighed in.

And as of this writing, it’s unclear who will win: Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, or his challenger, retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. Massie, once popular in his district, has broken with Trump on a range of issues, while Gallrein has the president’s vocal support and a lead in the polls.

The primary will demonstrate just how much of a hold Trump still has on his party. But it’s also seen as a test of whether a staunch critic of Israel can survive in today’s GOP.

Massie has consistently voted against US aid to Israel — including its missile defense system, Iron Dome. In the closing days of the campaign, he announced a bill to register the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He’s also been accused of antisemitism for reasons that have nothing to do with Israel. AIPAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition and Christians United for Israel have all lined up behind Gallrein and spent heavily on him.

We’ve been here before — just on the other side of the aisle. The Kentucky primary is the most expensive ever, with more than $32 million in total ad spending, according to Politico. The second- and third-most expensive primaries ever also centered around Israel, when AIPAC-backed candidates ousted two anti-Israel Democratic members of the far-left Squad in 2024.

Back then, those primaries sent a message that pro-Israel forces still held sway in the Democratic Party, and a similar narrative is emerging in Kentucky. But two years of hindsight show that the 2024 races did little to halt the skydive in Democratic support for Israel. And there are signs this time that even if Massie loses, his defeat will be a bump in the road for Republican opponents of Israel, not a dead end.

A thorn in AIPAC’s side

Massie has long been a thorn in the side of AIPAC and pro-Israel Republicans. In 2021, he was the only GOP lawmaker to vote against funding Iron Dome. Appearing on the far-right Carlson’s show in 2024, Massie said he voted against measures supporting Israel 15 times in one month because he’s against “sending our money overseas” and “starting another proxy war.”

He has also posted on X about Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing“ in Gaza. In another post, he wrote, “Israel’s war in Gaza is so lopsided that there’s no rational argument American taxpayers should be paying for it. With tens of thousands of civilian casualties, there’s a moral dilemma too.”

In addition, he’s drawn the ire of Jewish groups for reasons largely unrelated to Israel. In 2021, he posted a meme comparing COVID vaccine mandates to the tattoos given to Auschwitz inmates. The previous year, he voted against a bill providing more funding for Holocaust education. He also voted against a bill combating antisemitism that used the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism — something that critics say is used to try to stifle criticism of Israel.

Antisemitism has also surfaced during his campaign. A pro-Massie PAC took aim at one of his opponent’s Jewish backers, Paul Singer, accusing the Republican megadonor in an ad of being a “far-left trans activist” and, at one point, without explanation, displaying a rainbow-pattered Star of David behind his head while saying he is “spending millions to remove Massie.”

Contacted by Axios, Massie did not condemn the ad and said the primary is “a referendum on whether the Israeli lobby can buy a seat in Kentucky. Paul Singer is among those.”

Gallrein, meanwhile, has gotten into hot water over an AI-generated ad by a group supporting him that showed Massie in a “throuple” with far-left Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, who are both harsh critics of Israel.

At odds with Trump

Israel isn’t the only issue where Massie and Trump are at odds. Massie was one of the leaders of the effort to release the Epstein files, which Trump, who was friends with Epstein, tried to prevent. Massie also voted against Trump’s signature spending bill.

Trump isn’t shy about going after Republicans he deems disloyal, and his opposition is usually a political death sentence. In Indiana, a group of state senators he opposed were defeated earlier this month. And Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, lost his own primary last week.

Despite the several issues at play in the primary, Massie has framed the campaign around Israel.

“When this race is over, whether I won or lost, that’s the story: Were they able to come in and take out a Republican who’s skeptical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies?” Massie said to Politico, insisting that he is “not against Israel” and isn’t antisemitic. “My opponent wouldn’t even be out of the starting blocks if it weren’t for that money.”

One of Massie’s most prominent backers is Carlson, himself a vociferous critic of Israel. In a recent video Carlson uploaded, he called Massie “the American they told us we should aspire to be,” and “the man you want your son to be.”

Carlson, too, claimed that Massie faces opposition because he “explained how the process works — how it is that members of Congress… wind up spending such a huge percentage of their time doing the bidding of a tiny Middle Eastern country.”

How much will the race matter?

If Massie loses on Tuesday, pro-Israel groups will count it as a victory. But how much will it matter in the long run?

In 2024, AIPAC and other pro-Israel activists backed challengers to Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, Squad members and outspoken opponents of Israel. They both lost, and the people who replaced them are much friendlier to Israeli policies. But it didn’t reverse the anti-Israel tide in the Democratic Party.

Since then, over two dozen Democratic members of Congress have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Eighty percent of Democratic voters have an unfavorable view of Israel. Forty Democratic senators voted to block some arms sales to Israel against the backdrop of conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran along with rampant settler violence in the West Bank. The fact that AIPAC ousted one percent of the US House Democratic caucus doesn’t seem to have made much difference overall.

The same could happen among Republicans after a Massie defeat. Opposition to Israel in the GOP is more limited than it is among Democrats, but it’s on an upward trajectory. The same poll that found 80% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of Israel reported that 57% of Republicans under 50 feel the same way.

Something (or someone) younger Republicans do like is Massie. One poll — albeit with small sample sizes — found that if the primary were held only among voters under 55, Massie would win.

Of course, if Massie wins, it would be a stinging rebuke not just to Trump but to AIPAC and its allies. And it would be a sign that anti-Israel voices are emboldened in both parties.

As it is, Republicans who feel negatively about Israel can take their cues from a stable of popular podcasters on the right, from Carlson to Megyn Kelly and others. Whether Massie wins or loses, those voices will still be there, with their huge audiences.

“Crushing Thomas Massie for the crime of telling the truth is itself a moral crime,” Carlson said at the end of his video boosting the candidate. “You can never punish people for telling the truth, and yet in Washington, the only people who are punished are those who told the truth. And at some point, that has to stop or the system itself lacks all legitimacy.”