KY Politics Insider: Massie’s endorsement theory & Barr’s ‘not a sin to be white’ ad
.JPG "Congressman Thomas Massie (R - KY) answers questions during the Towing Industry and Mason County Forum held at Parc Cafe in Maysville, Ky, on Sept. 24, 2025.")
Kentucky Politics Insider provides an analytical view of Kentucky politics and the conversations that drive decisions. Email me at ahorn@herald-leader.com or ping me on any one of the various social media sites with tips or comments.
The 2026 election cycle has been active since former Attorney General Daniel Cameron announced his bid to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell one year ago.
Last week was that cycle’s biggest yet.
Three polls came out, changing perceptions around where the GOP Senate candidates stand; two of those GOP candidates gave endorsements in the 4th Congressional District GOP primary, where President Donald Trump is working to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie.
The latest polls show that Cameron’s support has dropped, Lexington tech entrepreneur Nate Morris’ has risen and Rep. Andy Barr’s has increased modestly.
Barr gave his endorsement to Ed Gallrein, the Trump-backed former state senate candidate running against Massie. Thirty minutes afterward, Morris followed suit. Cameron has remained silent on the matter.
Massie has a theory on why that played out the way it did.
“All I can see is the polling in Kentucky’s 4th District, and in this district, Andy Barr is in third place. I think he realized he didn’t have a whole lot to lose by pulling the stunt of endorsing Ed Gallrein so that he could force Nate Morris to endorse Gallrein because Morris had more to lose in the 4th District,” Massie said.
Massie argues that forcing Morris’ hand hurt Morris more than Barr because of Barr’s relative weakness in Northern Kentucky.
The ultimate beneficiary could possibly be Cameron, he said.
“I can see, in a way, how it helps Daniel Cameron. I think there were people deciding between Daniel Cameron and Nate Morris in Kentucky’s 4th District — who are Thomas Massie supporters — and they’ll go to Daniel Cameron now, to the extent anybody’s paying attention,” Massie said.
Some state legislators in Massie’s orbit like Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, had already backed Cameron. Others who seemed open to backing Morris, like Rep. TJ Roberts, R-Burlington, offered sharp criticism of Morris’ decision to endorse Gallrein.
Is it a ‘sin to be white’?
Barr released an ad Saturday, backed by a $1 million buy, that garnered attention from both left and right.
In the ad, he called the acronym “DEI,” commonly used to refer to diversity, equity and inclusion principles, should stand for “dumb, evil indoctrination.”
DEI has been a common target among conservatives, who say that institutions like higher education and big business have gone too far in their efforts to diversify, harming white men in the process. Last year the Kentucky legislature passed a ban on the practice in higher education.
Barr played on that topic to finish the ad.
“It’s not a sin to be white, it’s not against the law to be male, and it shouldn’t be disqualifying to be a Christian,” Barr said.
It elicited a response from Charles Booker, who became the first Black nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky history when he won the Democratic primary in 2022. Booker is running again this year.
“It’s not a sin to be white. It should be a sin to be this desperate though. The only DEI this pathetic politician understands is “Deny Epstein Investigation,’” Booker wrote in a social media post.
That kind of response seemed to be exactly what Team Barr was looking to provoke with the ad, which ended with Barr saying he approved “this message to give woke liberals something else to cry about.” The Barr campaign later featured Booker’s post, as well as the reactions of other Kentucky Democrats, in a press release highlighting “woke liberal meltdowns” about the ad.
Where do the polls stand now?
In the handful of polls done in the summer and fall of 2025, Cameron was the clear frontrunner in every one. One poll pegged him at 42% support, another at 40% with a cushy lead over Barr. Morris was averaging 8% in those polls.
Then, a poll done in early January by a pro-Cameron political action committee solidified the narrative that Cameron was leading, but showed Morris growing. Cameron had 40% backing to Barr’s 25% and Morris’ 13%.
In the most recent batch of polls, Morris kept growing, but Cameron’s support declined.
Averaging out two independent polls — one from Emerson College and another from Quantus Insights — and one from Morris’ campaign shows Morris comfortably in the teens and Cameron’s coming down to parity with Barr. The Lexington area congressman narrowly led both independent polls, while Cameron had an eight-point lead in the Morris-funded poll.
The mic ‘snatch’
On Friday night, a clip of Kentucky House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, taking away the mic from Massie at the end of his speech at the Oldham County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner went viral on social media. Massie had gone over his speaking time.
“Senate candidate Nate Morris, Congressman Thomas Massie, and congressional candidate Ed Gallrein all went over their allotted time and were ushered from the stage when they continued past their time limit. Every candidate for office was held to the same standard and no one was given any preferential treatment regardless of political alignments,” the Oldham County GOP wrote on its Facebook page after the event.
Still, the clip, of Massie being cut off while saying he works for voters instead of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, took off, with Massie supporters lauding him as bold and detractors calling him a grandstander.
Osborne said he was justified in taking away Massie’s mic.
“You can’t go double your allotted time and not expect somebody to step in. Ask every member of this chamber. There’s a reason I have a rule book, three timers and a gavel up there. Everybody knew the rules,” Osborne said Monday when asked about it on the House floor.
Massie has dubbed it “snatch-gate.” He said his campaign raised $60,000 from the viral video and holds no ill will toward Osborne.
“We raised $60,000 off of snatch-gate. It was almost better than a Trump attack in terms of fundraising. I’m really not upset with David Osborne,” Massie said.
Massie & Paul town hall
Massie gets the most headlines and social media attention of any of Kentucky’s members of the U.S. House — no small feat given the number of committee chairs and the Dean of the U.S. House are in the delegation. But a frequent criticism from detractors is that Massie, who often bucks the party on matters of federal spending and international affairs, has a thin congressional record.
Massie and close ally Sen. Rand Paul got a chance to address that criticism in a joint telephone town hall held Tuesday night.
Paul’s exhibit A was Massie’s push to pass a bill forcing release of the files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Virtually no Republicans were supportive at the beginning; virtually all ultimately voted for it.
“Some people say ‘oh, well Thomas Massie can’t pass anything.’ He went from four to every Republican... They all flipped. They all supported this bill,” Paul said.
Massie also highlighted his push to remove a preemption of state and local laws regulating AI data centers, some of which are eyeing his district.
Though the town hall was not a partisan exercise, given that it was sponsored by Paul’s official office, it highlighted Paul and Massie’s tight political alliance.
That very alliance has led to some speculation that Paul could help Cameron, the only one of the three leading GOP U.S. Senate candidates that hasn’t endorsed Gallrein.
What does Massie think about that prospect? He’s uncertain.
“I don’t think he really has anything to gain by getting involved. I don’t know if he has a preference, and he couldn’t be any more involved in my race than he is,” he said.
