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Elected office or not, a host of possibilities await Kentucky’s Thomas Massie

Even though he lost his reelection bid to Congress in May, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie’s supporters signaled they’re ready for his next campaign.

Shortly after the Associated Press called , President Donald Trump’s candidate Ed Gallrein, Massie took to the stage in a packed ballroom at the Marriott Hotel near the Cincinnati airport in Hebron. He gave a nearly 30-minute concession speech but was largely all smiles as the crowd before him interrupted him multiple times with cheers.

“What happens in 2028?” Massie quipped in response to the crowd chanting the presidential election year over and over again. “Oh, you want me to run for Congress again?”

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Arden Barnes for the Kentucky Lantern

The crowd yelled “no” in response and then started chanting “president” over and over again.

“You made a compelling argument. You spoke your piece, but I need a medical margarita right now and we’ll talk about it later,” Massie said before leaving the stage.

For the next couple of hours or so, Massie was in the crowd talking with supporters. A long line formed to take photos with the congressman and get his autograph. One attendee brought a white rabbit to show him.

Dalton Henry, a Massie supporter who the that he traveled from Florida to campaign for the congressman ahead of the primary, said Massie’s congressional run was “definitely a start of a movement” and compared him to former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, who gained national attention as a Libertarian.

“If he runs, I’m there. If he runs — I don’t care if he runs for dog catcher,” Henry said when asked if he’d support a future Massie campaign. “I don’t even know if you run for dog catcher in this state, but I’ll come in.”

A lot of options

Massie, who has seven months left in Congress before his term ends, has options before him, Kentucky political observers say — whether or not that’s to seek another office or build something outside of politics.

Massie cannot make a run as an independent candidate against Gallrein in the fall. Kentucky election law has a “sore loser” prohibition, preventing someone from running in a if they were a primary candidate. Another statute prevents someone defeated in a primary from running as for the same office in the general election.

But even if he doesn’t take up the crowd’s offer on a presidential campaign, he could consider a run for Kentucky governor in 2027 — he previously earlier this year.

Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Northern Kentucky, said running for governor would make “some sense as a potential next step” for Massie. The only candidate to formally announce a run so far is . Rumored Republican candidates are and . Republican state Senate President Robert Stivers also hasn’t .

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Arden Barnes for the Kentucky Lantern

Massie did lose by 10 points, according to , but “he was running against the president of the United States for a congressional seat,” Grayson said. Massie’s following as a Liberty Republican could be “a different sort of base of support than” someone like Comer, “so there would be a lane for somebody like him in that race.

“All that being said, he did lose. And I don’t think his concession speech did him any favors,” Grayson said.

While Massie’s remarks were well-received in-person, bashed Massie’s opening joke, which was that he would have come to the stage sooner to speak, but he had to call his opponent and concede, “and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”

On May 17, that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other pro-Israel interest groups have spent $9 million against Massie, who often supports isolationist politics and . AIPAC in a statement: “Our community was proud to support Gallrein and help ensure Massie’s defeat.”

Massie also faced fierce attacks on his personal life leading up to Tuesday, Grayson noted. Massie said he was after an interview with former girlfriend, Cynthia West, went viral on X and she accused Massie of offering her hush money to drop a complaint against his ally Indiana Republican U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz. He has repeatedly denied this.

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Arden Barnes for the Kentucky Lantern

“He wouldn’t be the first person to say, ‘I’m good. I’m done. I can go do something else,’” Grayson said.

Blake Gober, who is a former campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Andy Barr’s U.S. Senate campaign, said that Massie’s “elected political career is over.”

Massie ally, Kentucky Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, son of the aforementioned Ron, hasn’t ruled out himself. If Rand does that, maybe Massie runs for U.S. Senate, Gober said, but he doesn’t “see a path” to being elected.

On the governor question, Gober said Massie and Comer have “a cordial, if not friendly, relationship,” and would not see Massie run against him in that race.

Massie does “100%” have a nonpolitical future, Gober said.

“I think that he is technically a genius. He will, for sure, make sure everybody knows he has two degrees from MIT,” Gober said. Massie could be influential in Republican politics with groups like or , a Libertarian think tank, to work on writing legislation.

Massie could also back other political candidates he agrees with and help fundraise for them, or “write a book that probably would become a New York Times bestseller,” Gober said.

“Also, he can go into the private sector and probably make a whole ton of money, so he has an extremely bright future, and just because his elected political career is over, in my opinion, doesn’t mean that his future is any less bright,” Gober said. “As far as having influence politically, some of that is based upon what he does between now and January, when he’s no longer in Congress.”

Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, said that Massie’s concession speech “clearly was teasing some kind of future activity.” If Massie doesn’t seek another office, he could appear on news shows as a spokesperson on politics, kind of like Scott Jennings on CNN, or find work at a think tank to reshape policy, Voss said.

“Massie’s built a substantial national following,” Voss said. He’s become almost a household name, which not a lot of members of Congress are able to do, and he’s giving voice to a segment of the electorate that doesn’t have a lot of spokespeople.”

What does this mean for Liberty Republicans?

Throughout Massie’s seven terms in Congress, he became a leader of Liberty Republicans in Kentucky, with several of them being elected to the state legislature and to local positions in Northern Kentucky.

Voss said that Massie’s loss might make Liberty Republicans “more cautious” and cause legislators to “pick their battles a little more selectively.”

“I’m not sure the Liberty Republicans needed Massie’s loss to convince them that they needed to play ball most of the time. I would look back at when you know some of the Liberty Republicans were more disempowered within the state legislature as a message that already got through,” Voss said before adding that the caucus was “much more cooperative this last legislative session, almost sleepy.”

In 2023, some Liberty-aligned Republicans were at the end of the session, and said it was a punishment for bucking leadership. Massie came to their defense at the time and said the move had “an air of pettiness that voters detest.” The lawmakers were later added back .

Some Liberty allies had wins on Tuesday, like in the Republican primary for Boone County judge-executive, Grayson said. That shows “that there’s still a lot of vibrancy in this Liberty movement inside the Kentucky Republican Party,” but Massie’s loss also “doesn’t help” the Liberty Republicans.

Gober said that if Massie doesn’t run for governor, he could see someone from that wing of the party throwing their hat in the ring. That could be someone like state Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, who initially but ended her campaign in 2022.

“I think that that would be a dumb decision personally, but obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen between now and then,” Gober said.

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Arden Barnes for the Kentucky Lantern

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