Primary elections being held in several US states ahead of November midterms

The US is holding several primary elections Tuesday ahead of the November midterms, with a key focus being on the state of Kentucky, in which incumbent Republican congressman and President Donald Trump’s adversary Thomas Massie is facing off against challenger Ed Gallrein, who is being endorsed by the president and other high-ranking Trump administration officials, according to local media reports.

The Kentucky primary is the most closely watched race, especially for Republicans, since the Kentucky Derby horse race 18 days ago, as Massie tries to stave off a hard charge by Trump to oust him from his position in the US House of Representatives in order to have another Republican ally in the fold to pass legislation.

Massie has been a consistent opponent of Trump-backed bills in the House, which caused Trump to endorse Gallrein.

In the waning hours of his campaign, Massie is not backing down from Trump, aiming his defiant rhetoric at the president until the polls close.

"He knows I'm tough to beat," Massie said of Trump during an interview with CBS News. "He's literally losing sleep over this race because he's in with both feet."

"I think their polling shows what our polling shows, which is there's a better than half chance that we're going to win this race.”

"I'm going to win," he said.

But Massie noted that millions of dollars in spending by pro-Israel interest groups is having an effect.

“I think what would have been a 60-40 race (in my favor) is now a 50-50 race," he continued.

Massie has voted against Trump's most high-profile agenda items, from the US-Israeli war with Iran to Trump's signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

"(Trump has) decided that since these files don't further implicate him in his opinion and exonerate him that we should just move on," Massie said in an interview with Politico, adding he has "taken great pains to keep this from becoming a partisan exercise, because if it devolves into who shows up in the files more -- Bill Clinton or Donald Trump -- that's just the typical food fight that you have in Washington, DC."

Massie told CBS that he votes with Trump "90% of the time" but added that the president and his allies "want 100% compliance."

"It's only the 10% of the time they're mad about -- when I won't vote for a war, when I won't vote for warrantless spying and when I won't vote to bankrupt the country," said Massie. "But in those instances, I'm doing what I told the people in Kentucky I would do."

Regardless of Massie's take on the situation, Trump's political assault of his nemesis is going down to the wire, with millions of dollars being funneled into Gallrein's campaign from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Republican Jewish Coalition and Republican megadonors including Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-American businesswoman who owns stakes in the Las Vegas Sands casino and resort company and the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also made a last-minute stop in Kentucky on Monday on behalf of the president to stump for Gallrein before the polls close. Massie pointed to Hegseth's visit as a good sign for his own campaign.

"You don't send the Secretary of War to Kentucky during a war if you think your candidate is up 10 points. That's what you do when you realize your whole campaign is imploding," he said.

There are a few key races in other US states holding Tuesday primaries.

In Georgia, the governor's seat is open due to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp being term-limited and not able to run for a third stint in office.

That race is being closely watched by both Democrats and Republicans, as Georgia is the state Trump zeroed-in on after the 2020 presidential election, in which he lost to Joe Biden, and made unsubstantiated claims that 11,780 votes were "stolen" from him in Georgia as to why he lost the election.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger resisted Trump's push "to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," and despite Trump's vitriol against him, Raffensperger won reelection to his post in 2022.

Fast forward to this year's 2026 primary and Raffensperger is one of four Republican candidates vying for the governor's mansion. He is facing Trump-backed candidate and current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who signed on as a phony elector as part of one of the schemes to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

State Attorney General Chris Carr, who declined to pursue an election fraud case against Trump in 2020, is also on the ballot.

Additionally, billionaire Rick Jackson threw his hat into the governor's race and has already spent a record $83 million so far on campaign advertising, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. Jackson has promised to become Trump's "favorite governor" if elected.

There are also seven Democrats fighting for the Democratic party's nomination for governor, including former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who is considered to be the frontrunner in the race.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is testing his political influence on swing voters, as Democrats have a path to gain up to four seats in the US House of Representatives if they clear the primaries. However, Republicans believe they have a shot of picking up a few seats in the US House and staving off a Democratic sweep.

A heated race for the governor's mansion is also at stake in this year's Alabama primary elections. Popular Republican Gov. Kay Ivey is term-limited and cannot run again. Republican US Sen. Tommy Tuberville is considered the frontrunner for the party's nomination as he faces off against two other Republican candidates.

There are six candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, including former Sen. Doug Jones, whom Tuberville defeated in 2020 for the Senate seat.

And as Tuberville vacates his Senate position, six Republicans and four Democrats are now vying to fill his Senate seat in Tuesday's primary elections.

Idaho has an important race for governor in Tuesday's primary, and both members of its congressional delegation are facing primary challengers.

Oregon does not hold open primaries, but Democrats and Republicans can respectively take part in their own party's primary races. Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek has nine Democratic challengers, while 14 Republicans are vying for their party's candidate for governor, including former Portland Trailblazers professional basketball player Chris Dudley.