Why Thomas Massie isn't Liz Cheney - Washington Examiner

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : Many Republicans have ended their political careers by fighting with Trump, who is now at the zenith of his political power.
53% : Relatedly, Cheney became monomaniacally focused on opposing Trump in one of the states where he was most popular.
50% : TRUMP ROLLS THE DICE ON THE ECONOMY, LONG HIS TOP ISSUE Loyalty to Trump is important to the MAGA base.
42% : "The people of Kentucky won't stand for it, just watch," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
40% : Second, Massie's base has considerable overlap with Trump's.
40% : Third, cutting government spending still animates much of the Republican base, even if GOP presidents and Congresses have generally failed to deliver while in office.
38% : But her real base was in the media and among Never Trump operatives, neither especially helpful in a Republican primary.
38% : Trump also wants to weed out lawmakers who make it difficult for Republicans to govern with their narrow House majority as much as he seeks any particular ideological conformity within the party.
37% : Trump didn't actually end up endorsing Massie's primary opponent in the next election.
30% : None of this is to say Trump couldn't pose a real problem for Massie, or any Republican, in a primary.
30% : Jeff Sessions went from running unopposed in a 2014 general election for Senate in Alabama to failing to break 40% of the vote in a Republican primary runoff six years later following his break with Trump.
27% : Trump broke 70% of the in Wyoming in 2024 and came close in both 2016 and 2020.
24% : On moving toward a less interventionist, "America First" foreign policy, combatting the deep state, and pursuing DOGE-style spending cuts, Massie wants to go further than Trump does. Massie later came up with a theory of how the tea party powered both libertarian and more government-friendly national conservatives, including Trump.
24% : It is therefore not surprising that Cheney would lose a Republican primary by 37.4 points in such a state while repeatedly attacking Trump and, by implication, many of his voters.
19% : Massie has bucked Trump on occasion, but has never positioned himself as aggressively anti-Trump, even in contrast with a fellow libertarian like former Rep. Justin Amash, much less Cheney.

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