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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made an appearance in Kentucky on Monday, where he worked to drum up support for Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL running against incumbent Congressman Thomas Massie, R-Ky.
“Kentucky has a choice in this race,” Hegseth told supporters of Gallrein at a campaign event. “You can send a warrior, reinforcements for the president in our shared fight against the radical left, or you can send an obstructionist. In my mind, it’s an easy choice.”
Hegseth praised Gallrein, who was endorsed by President Trump last year, as a “warfighter, a man forged through service.” By contrast, he criticized Massie and accused him of accomplishing “nothing.”
“At some point, being against everything becomes an excuse for accomplishing nothing,” Hegseth stated.
The battle for the Fourth District of Kentucky has become incredibly heated, and it has shaped up to potentially be the most expensive House primary race in U.S. history. According to Politico, ad spending has exceeded a staggering $32 million as President Trump and a legion of donors have worked to unseat Massie.
“The worst Congressman in the long and storied history of the Republican Party, is Thomas Massie,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “He is an obstructionist and a fool. Vote him out of office tomorrow, Tuesday. It will be a great day for America!”
Gallrein, despite being the primary challenger, declined to debate Massie throughout the primary campaign season. When confronted about this at a political event, Gallrein told an attendee that he was “debating him right now.”
The polls for District Four suggest that Gallrein, with Trump’s endorsement in tow, is leading among primary voters, but not by much. New survey results from Big Data (May 17) that Massie was leading by a hair – 50.2 against Gallrein’s 49.8.
“Rep. Massie is leading with a more broad coalition of voting age cohorts—Generation Z, Millennials and Generation X—while Mr. Gallrein leads with a more narrow, but also more reliable cohort, Boomers/Silent Gen,” the report noted.
Betting market odds, which have been somewhat frenetic in their projections about the outcome of this race, have thinned over the past week. Polymarket’s odds projected as of Monday afternoon that Gallrein had a 64 percent chance of winning on Tuesday.
