In Massie’s Northern KY district, voters say they’re torn between him and Trump
Politically speaking, Paul Kunkel and John Hall lead very different lives.
Hall, a loyal Republican voter, has heard of Rep. Thomas Massie and believes he’s voted for him before. He doesn’t know anything of Ed Gallrein, the Trump-endorsed veteran trying to beat him in the May 19 primary.
Speaking from a McDonald’s on the eastern edge of the 4th Congressional District, Hall said his political diet is limited to what he overhears from the television set his wife watches while he’s occupied with an adult coloring book in the adjacent room. In a late January interview, Hall wasn’t sure about who he’d support in the race.
Kunkel, 60, is the type to regularly attend political events. He personally knows Massie and sized up Gallrein face-to-face at a recent meet and greet. A retired police captain, Kunkel told the Herald-Leader he’s still undecided between the two.
“Darn, that’s a hard question,” Kunkel said over a beer at a Northern Kentucky political rally in early March.
The answer to that question for voters like Kunkel and Hall could swing the balance of America’s most closely-watched — and one that has drawn intense interest from President Donald Trump — U.S. House GOP primary.
In Kentucky’s 4th Congressional district, which hugs the Ohio River from the hills of Massie’s native northeastern Kentucky, through the populous Cincinnati suburbs all the way to the outskirts of Louisville, have a choice. Back Massie, an infamous Libertarian-leaning thorn in Trump’s side. Or, go with Trump’s pick and back Gallrein, who pledges unflagging support for the president’s agenda.
Massie has drawn the ire of Trump throughout his second term in the White House, pushing back on his foreign policy moves, forcing a vote on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files and voting against Trump’s marquee budget bill.
Trump has repeatedly insulted Massie personally, including an attack on his wife, and some in his political network are leading the charge against him in the primary. At a recent rally in the district, Trump implored voters to kick Massie out of office, calling him a loser, “Rand Paul Jr.,” and a “total disaster as a congressman, and, frankly, a human being.”
Massie has gained notoriety, and fundraising dollars, from the attacks.
The district is undoubtedly “Trump Country,” as many speakers at the president’s recent rally in Boone County emphasized.
But that doesn’t mean his support is automatically transferrable.
Hall, for instance, said he’d “probably” vote for whoever Trump supported if he knew about who that was. But Kunkel, who’s undecided, wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t do what I’m told,” Kunkel said. “I don’t do what people tell me to do. I always look for what the truth is.”
Kunkel and Hall were two of more than a dozen voters interviewed by the Herald-Leader in late winter and early spring. The Herald-Leader visited communities in the east, in the heart of the voter-dense Northern Kentucky counties and in suburban Louisville — stopping at gas stations, political rallies, bowling alleys and two McDonald’s locations to get a pulse on voter sentiment.
Watching from afar
Just outside Vanceburg, at a Clark’s Pump ‘n Shop gas station along the AA Highway, Roger Dale waited for his granddaughter to pick him up.
Dale, 58, is a retired scaffolding worker for a nearby power plant. Only a few years older than Massie, he said he “grew up” with the congressman on the same side of the county where Massie currently resides. Without hesitation, Dale said he supported Massie and has voted for him at every opportunity.
“He stands up for us. He doesn’t back down,” Dale said in late Jannuary.
But he was equally quick to state that Massie will lose in May.
“I think Trump will beat him,” Dale said. “Trump’s got more power than Massie does. Trump’s got more money, too.”
Though Hall’s familiarity with Massie was much lower than Dale’s, his background is similar.
A 75-year-old retired power company lineman, Hall lives in Raceland, a town so named for the horse racing track built there and later abandoned by Jack O. Keene, who went on to develop Lexington’s historic Keeneland racetrack. It’s the far eastern stretch of Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.
When approached at a McDonald’s in Flatwoods and asked what he did for work late January, Hall joked to a nearby worker.
“He asked me what I did for work. I said, ‘Come to McDonald’s twice a day,’” Hall quipped.
Hall likes Trump, and said if he’d heard directly from the president that he should vote against Massie, he “probably” would.
“I don’t know nothing of him, really, aside from his name,” Hall said of Massie.
At Pappy’s Cookin’, a popular home cooking joint in Flatwoods, Denice and Carl Wellman, said they try to welcome people of all political stripes; Greenup County has a tradition of electing local Democrats, but supported Trump by 51 percentage points in 2024.
Both registered Republicans, the Wellmans didn’t offer much perspective on Massie or Trump, but offered some thoughts on how Massie’s puckish contrarianism might be perceived.
“Everybody needs to stay in check, and in order to do that, you have to have someone that’s really willing to rock the boat. I’m not saying that’s good or bad,” Carl Wellman said.
“There’s a difference of staying in check and being disrespectful,” Denice Wellman added.
Three men who did not wish to be interviewed in-depth — at another McDonald’s outside the county seat of Greenup — told the Herald-Leader they were “for Trump all the way.”
On the edge of the district’s population center — Cincinnati suburb communities of Kenton, Campbell and Boone counties — Neicey Cline enjoyed a mixed drink at the bar attached to Southern Lanes Sports Center bowling alley in Alexandria.
Cline, 62, is a self-employed furniture reupholstery worker and has been a Republican for several years. She likes Trump because “he’s human,” and believes him to be the best person to protect America “from illegals, from wars (and) from being taken advantage of in the economy.”
She has heard of Massie, but doesn’t know much about him. Cline said she makes sure to vote in every primary she can. But despite her fondness for Trump, she said she wouldn’t be an automatic vote against Massie if she knew he wanted him out.
“No. All Trump needs to do is be himself. It’s up to the people to listen, acknoweldge and make their own decision. We don’t need ads — they just cost more money,” Cline said.
Plugged in voters
In the far western edge of the 4th Congressional District, the suburban Louisville community of Oldham County, U.S. Senate candidate Nate Morris held a rally in downtown La Grange.
Dawn Shuler, who had brought a photo of herself and Morris to remind them of their mutual connection helping to elect former GOP Gov. Ernie Fletcher, asked Morris a pointed question. The candidate had just endorsed Gallrein, moments after his competitor Rep. Andy Barr did the same, despite earlier courting some of Massie’s biggest supporters.
Shuler prefaced her question by restating how dedicated of a Trump supporter she was. But she’s got one issue.
“However, I don’t like people kissing the feet of a president. I think it’s important for that president to see many sides of the coin. So a lot of people don’t like (Sen.) Rand Paul and Thomas Massie. I get it,” Shuler said. “But how do you think you would work with them?”
Morris said it was an “interesting question,” but expressed disappointment with those who would thwart Trump, whose election win in Kentucky marks a strong mandate.
Though Morris endorsed against him, Shuler said she supports both Morris and Massie.
“As much as I like Rand Paul and Thomas Massie, I do think there are times when they need to know that they should get out of the way and let things happen. So I think Nate’s probably gonna be a good change,” Shuler said.
Brenda Vance, a retired college instructor who also attended the rally, had a different view of Massie. She’s “leaning more away from him.”
Massie doesn’t seem concerned enough about the state of Kentucky, as opposed to Washington drama, she said.
That doesn’t mean Vance is fired up about Gallrein, specifically, or that he’d left much of an impression as of a late February interview. She forgot his name when asked.
“Now that you asked me, I just forgot. Anybody that’s running against (Massie) is what I’m going to consider, at least,” Vance said.
Support for Massie and Gallrein was also diverse at an early March event for U.S. Senate candidate and former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
Sherry Evans, a 64-year-old from Boone County, said she used to be a big Massie fan. She went door-to-door for him in three campaigns. Now, she said he’s gone “too far left,” and has grown standoffish after he gained a new level of fame.
Evans said she used to see Massie in establishments like Barleycorns, the popular sports bar hosting Cameron’s event.
“He hangs out in a lot of these places, and he used to be very approachable. He used to be very nice, and he could discuss things with you, and now he’s not that person anymore,” Evans said.
Jack Rudnick, a 72-year-old health care administration professor from Campbell County, agreed. He said he’s not exactly anti-Massie, but is likely to move on.
“He’s been very, almost antagonistic. It just doesn’t feel right... It seems like he’s become very contrarian. We don’t know what that’s all about,” Rudnick said.
Cameron is the only one of the three leading GOP Senate candidates to not endorse Gallrein over Massie. At the event, two of Massie’s closest allies in the state legislature — Reps. TJ Roberts of Burlington and Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge — introduced him.
That hasn’t deterred those voters skeptical of Massie from fully embracing Cameron. But it has drawn some Massie supporters to Cameron.
That includes Jerry Gearding, a controversial former candidate for state House and diehard fan of Massie and Paul.
“When this stuff comes out, ‘Oh they voted against this bill,’ I automatically know that there’s something in there that isn’t good, and there’s a good reason why they didn’t,” Gearding said.
Even though many Republican voters interviewed by the Herald-Leader had little clue about Massie’s stances and reputation, and all of them supported Trump, Gearding said he thinks Massie’s reputation is solid enough to weather the slings and arrows from Trump.
“I think the people here in the district have seen that, and I think the attacks from the President and the media, with all of these funded campaigns by billionaires that are in the Epstein list, have made Thomas more popular. So I truly believe that’s backfiring.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
