Ed Gallrein, the AIPAC-backed candidate in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional district defeated Thomas Massie in the GOP Primary but Chris Rapp beat two AIPAC-supported candidates to take the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s 3rd district.
But it might be all for naught as Trump has been awarded a $1.8 billion political slush fund and seems to have bad intentions to manipulate the mid-terms.
Kentucky Results
Per the NY Times, Ed Gallrein won the Republican primary in KY-4 with 57,822 votes or 54.9%. Massie lost with 47,539 votes or 45.1% of the vote.
That’s 105,361 total votes. For comparison 41,569 were cast in the Democratic primary which saw Melissa Claire Strange win the nomination.
For comparison Trump won 67% of the district’s vote in the 2024 Presidential election.
AIPAC and their allies invested big in Gallrein’s win:
UPDATE: AIPAC and the Israel lobby have now spent >$15 MILLION boosting Ed Gallrein and attacking Rep. Thomas Massie in #KY04. pic.twitter.com/Znmtc4GEXz
— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) May 16, 2026
Eliminating Massie is a big step towards AIPAC’s goal buying of 100% bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress:
Israel lobby identified 10 House Reps that must be defeated because they don’t vote for Israel bills:
2024: Israel lobby spent $32M & defeated Jamaal Bowman & Cori Bush
2025: They attacked MTG until she resigned
2026: Israel lobby spent $15M & defeated Thomas Massie
They used… https://t.co/9ATYSyu9jJ pic.twitter.com/l0GDsGh0ce
— GenXGirl (@GenXGirl1994) May 20, 2026
As for which voters chose Gallrein over Massie, polling made that clear:
Massie vs. Gallrein support by age demographic
Boomers win again pic.twitter.com/g5jLzlYFQY
— Chris Brunet (@chrisbrunet) May 20, 2026
What Next for Massie?
Massie is blocked from running in the general election as an independent or third party candidate by Kentucky’s Sore Loser law, but CNN has some speculation about his future:
As Massie becomes the latest Republican added to Trump’s growing list of revenge and retribution, his concession speech Tuesday night here in Kentucky sounded like anything but. He delivered a forward-looking message to supporters, who seemed more energized than crestfallen.
“What started out as an election turned into a movement,” Massie said. “We stirred up something. There is a yearning in this country for someone who will vote for principles over party.”
The message of optimism – and defiance – sets the stage for the next chapter of Massie’s political life. His congressional term ends in January. His loyal fans made clear they have bigger things in mind.
As someone in the crowd shouted, “Massie for president!” his supporters erupted in booming applause. For his part, Massie smiled and laughed on stage and kept delivering a speech that was interrupted again and again with loud chants of “2028!”
Time will tell if Massie re-emerges on the political stage, but there was another primary last night where AIPAC did NOT win. Let’s go to Pennsylvania.
Rabb Beats Two AIPAC-Backed Rivals in Philly
I should have covered this race Monday when I previewed Massie-Gallrein, as it was also on the front lines of AIPAC’s efforts to impose total control over the U.S. House.
First the results:
pic.twitter.com/imp1jY60hl
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) May 20, 2026
The Philadelphia Inquirer has the basics:
State Rep. Chris Rabb, a democratic socialist who has repeatedly challenged Philadelphia’s political establishment, has won the tightly contested 3rd Congressional District primary — a striking victory for the city’s left-leaning coalition after a combative and rare open contest.
…
In the bluest district in the country, the result sets Rabb on an almost guaranteed path to succeeding U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, who is retiring after a decade in the seat. Rabb’s election would mark a significant shift from half of Philadelphia voters being represented by a more mainstream Democratic voice to one in the most left-wing faction of Congress.
City & State PA has more:
Given the district makeup, which includes Center City and parts of North and West Philadelphia, the Democratic primary field initially included as many as a dozen candidates. The field narrowed throughout the last few months, with three front-runners leading the way as the May primary election approached: Dr. Ala Stanford, state Sen. Sharif Street and state Rep. Chris Rabb. The fourth remaining candidate is a political newcomer, Shaun Griffith, a tax attorney who previously worked for the state government before opening his own firm in Roxborough.
Street had the name recognition and party connections to fuel a successful campaign from the jump, but has faced stiff competition for the deep blue seat. Rabb sought the progressive crowd and pitched himself as an anti-establishment candidate, while Stanford – who entered the race with a medical background, no legislative experience and the endorsement of Evans – balanced her message as being both a new kind of representative and an experienced public health professional with support from the incumbent.
Aside from the issues at home, the ongoing conflict in Gaza became a flashpoint during the campaign – another instance where Rabb seemed to set himself apart from the more moderate orators in Stanford and Street. Stanford, whose campaign was also accused of accepting funds from pro-Israel groups, had her response to the Israel-Palestine conflict become an albatross among progressive voters who attended community forums.
Philly Voice has a little more:
The costly campaign, estimated at $9.84 million by financial data platform Quiver Quantitative, has been a reflection of the political fault lines between the centrist arm of the Democratic Party, represented by Street and Stanford, and its progressive wing championed by Rabb.
Rabb was first elected to the Pennsylvania legislature in 2016 and has served five terms in the 200th District, which spans Mount Airy and Cedarbrook in Northwest Philadelphia. The former business professor and union organizer at Temple University authored the 2010 book “Invisible Capital,” examining the barriers that societal inequality imposes on entrepreneurship.
In his campaign, Rabb identified as a Democratic Socialist and anti-establishment candidate poised to build on the electoral success of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other progressives. He’s been an outspoken critic of Democrats, including Street and Stanford, who recoil from using the word genocide to describe Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
Rabb’s platform calls for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and legalizing cannabis for adults. He also wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and end funding to Israel.
And here’s Rabb speaking for himself:
This is how the guy who just won in the bluest Congressional district in the country talked about the Democratic Party and its messaging. pic.twitter.com/DsaVMi76eB
— Jacobin (@jacobin) May 20, 2026
Are the Dems Showing Signs of Breaking Free?
Chris Sosa on Substack argues that last night’s results show a GOP that is eliminating dissent and a Democratic party that is moving towards freedom from foreign control:
As the GOP continues to consolidate into something between a personal party of the sitting president and a purchasable entity by major super PACs, a populist revolt continues in the Democratic Party.…Rabb’s win is yet another example of how the pro-Israel consensus on the Democratic side has collapsed amid the Gaza genocide and is unlikely to rebound. However, the sentiment that animates this collapse is rooted in broader value shifts: a growing sense of global community among Democratic voters, who have become more ardently anti-war across the board, more concerned about global human rights and more aware of how systems of power impact their own daily lives.
As the Democratic result demonstrates organic realignment among the party’s own base, the Republican result demonstrates personal fealty to the president’s cult of personality without a clear path toward long-term success under a democratic system.
The president himself is remarkably unpopular, Democrats are favored in the generic ballot for this midterm cycle (despite gerrymandering), and it seems increasingly clear that the Republican Party’s plan for continued success is directly tied to eroding the democratic system further and further to ensure disapproval cannot interrupt its own rule.
And about that…
Does Trump Have a Non-Electoral Victory Map for the Mid-Terms?
Let’s start with Bloomberg’s coverage of Trump’s new $1.8 billion slush fund:
President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service has ended under the shadow of corruption: In exchange for dropping the case over leaked tax returns, the government will set aside money for Trump’s allies, all under his ultimate control and without independent oversight.
The $1.776 billion fund — an apparent nod to the nation’s founding — seems more about advancing political narratives than achieving justice. In fact, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to rule out payouts to individuals who attacked Capitol Police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. Blanche also added an outright gift to Trump and his sons: releasing them from any claims that could be brought against them by the IRS forever. It’s a legally questionable move, since it’s unrelated to Trump’s claims in the lawsuit.
The original lawsuit, brought by the president and his sons, sought an astonishing $10 billion in damages for alleged violations of the Internal Revenue Code and the Privacy Act after an IRS employee shared Trump’s tax returns with the media in 2019. To resolve the conflict, the Justice Department announced Monday that it would establish the so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund to offer financial relief to other individuals, who were not parties to the suit but purportedly targeted with legal action on ideological grounds.
“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Blanche said.
Trump and his sons can now cast themselves as benefactors who magnanimously declined to accept any money themselves for the benefit of would-be victims of the DOJ’s alleged weaponization. For good measure, the agreement also requires the IRS to issue an apology to the Trumps. But the money serves two obvious purposes, despite the administration’s lofty claims: creating a false narrative that the Biden administration engaged in “lawfare” and paying off the president’s political henchmen alleged to have suffered from it.
And as for what might be done with this slush fund, Brian Beutler outlines how Trump may plan to put a thumb on the scales of the mid-term elections:
Trump’s first major official act in term two was to pardon all January 6 rioters, whether they were under indictment, on trial, convicted, or roaming free.
Then on Monday, with the complicity of the Justice and Treasury Departments, Trump stole almost $1.8 billion from taxpayers to create a slush fund nominally designed to pay off pardoned January 6 insurrectionists—but which Trump will control entirely, without oversight.
Trump ordered Republicans across the country to rig their House maps mid-Census.
When Democrats responded by redrawing their own maps just as aggressively, Republican judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, plus the Supreme Courts of Texas, Virginia, and (soon, it seems) Florida stepped into the fray, allowing Republican gerrymanders to take effect, while throwing out Democratic counter gerrymanders.
Trump’s Justice Department has sued the Washington, DC, bar for having the temerity to consider disciplinary action against Jeffrey Clark, a participant in the 2020 coup attempt.
Trump threatened to harm the state of Colorado by illegal means, unless its governor, Jared Polis, sprung the 2020 insurrectionist Tina Peters from prison. (Polis complied.)
Trump issued an executive order claiming power over mail ballots—specifically, the order requires the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security to create an unverified list of eligible voters, and prohibits the Post Office from sending mail ballots to anyone not on the list.
A DOJ lawyer told a federal judge that the government has taken no concrete steps to implement this executive order, but he appears to have lied: According to NOTUS, officials from the White House, DHS, DOJ, and the Postal Service—including a notorious election denier named Heather Honey—have met regularly in recent weeks to discuss implementing the order and defending it in court.Most liberals believe the nightmare scenario involves federal jackboots surrounding swing-district polling places and scaring off enough nonwhite citizens to flip results. And there is surely some risk there. If control of the House comes down to, say, 10 races, and Trump thinks he can tamper with two or three by sending ICE agents in droves to Long Island and Pennsylvania, why wouldn’t he give it a shot?
Oh boy.
Stay safe, y’all.
