Yesterday was primary day in several states, but one House race caught everyone’s attention — the Kentucky contest in which Thomas Massie got thumped for opposing Donald Trump.

Trump recruited and endorsed Massie’s challenger, retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, because Massie had become such a thorn in the president’s side. Gallrein didn’t disappoint, delivering a nearly 10-point drubbing to the seven-term incumbent in what became the most expensive House primary in U.S. history. Massie spent $5.8 million, roughly doubling Gallrein’s $2.6 million, and he still lost, largely thanks to the $16 million poured into the race by super PACs looking to oust Massie.

“My focus,” said Gallrein, “is on advancing the president’s and the party’s agenda to put America first and Kentucky always.”

Massie has always had an independent and libertarian streak, but in the last year, he has increasingly opposed President Trump’s agenda, including voting against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, conspiring with Democrats on the Epstein files discharge petition, and opposing the war in Iran. “It will be a referendum on foreign policy,” Massie said of the primary, “whether Israel gets to dictate that by bullying members of Congress — and I’m the one they haven’t been able to bully.” Massie opposes virtually all foreign aid, but then why single out Israel like that?

It’s one thing to stand for principle and your own constituents. It’s another to refuse to be a team player. The bottom line is that Massie changed, and voters noticed. He did lose his wife of more than 30 years in June 2024, and there’s no doubt that changes a man. It probably doesn’t explain everything.

“He was a bad guy. He deserves to lose,” Trump said of Massie on Tuesday. A day earlier, he called him the “worst ‘Republican’ congressman in history” and an “obstructionist and a fool.” Way back in his first term, Trump dismissed Massie as a “third-rate grandstander.”

Trump essentially thought the same thing of Bill Cassidy, whom Louisiana voters ousted on Saturday. The president was so emboldened by Cassidy’s defeat that he also endorsed Ken Paxton on Tuesday in his bid to unseat John Cornyn in the Texas Senate runoff. And that comes after Trump’s Indiana rout of anti-redistricting Republicans. It’s been a good month for Trump in his own party.

As for Paxton, he celebrated a huge victory against the child-mutilating gender cult just a few days ago, securing a settlement to protect kids from money-grubbing mad scientists who want to experiment on them. I doubt that played much of a role in Trump’s endorsement decision, but it’s a twofer for Paxton, nonetheless.

For good and ill, Paxton fits the Trump mold. He’s certainly more of what Trump called “a true MAGA Warrior” than Cornyn, though Cornyn is less antagonistic toward Trump than he sometimes is milquetoast (see the SAVE Act for further information). Yet the current state attorney general also brings a load of personal baggage with him. He was impeached by his own party over it. Should Paxton prevail against the incumbent senator next Tuesday, will all that baggage weigh him down against faux-Christian Democrat James Talarico? Time and a gajillion dollars in negative ad spending will tell.

From a broader perspective, Donald Trump’s grip on the Grand Old Party has arguably never been stronger. He has wide support among elected officials and the party — gasp — establishment. Any rogue Republicans are going the way of Liz Cheney, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie.

Yet Trump’s approval rating nationally is just about as low as it’s ever been. High gas prices brought about by the war in Iran, along with tariffs, persistent overall inflation, and his expansive use of executive power, have soured voters’ moods on the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. Presidents typically lose midterm elections, and Trump’s personal unpopularity may well drag down his party — especially as voters see him and his party as the same thing. No wonder he’s pushed gerrymandering so hard.