Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
Welcome to one of the biggest primary days of the year! Steve Kornacki dives into the key places to watch in Rep. Thomas Massie’s district tonight as he tries to fend off a GOP primary challenger backed by President Donald Trump. Speaking of Trump, he’s already looking ahead to next week’s Texas runoffs as he made a long-awaited endorsement in the Republican Senate primary.
A total of six states are holding primaries today. Tune into NBC News NOW coverage with Steve, Kristen Welker and Hallie Jackson starting at 6:30 p.m. ET. And follow along with the latest results and updates on our live blog.
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— Adam Wollner
President Donald Trump’s biggest test in tonight’s Republican primaries comes in Kentucky’s 4th District, where he is seeking to oust Rep. Thomas Massie in what has become the most expensive House primary in history.
Massie has represented the district since 2012, but is now in grave political danger as Trump has thrown his weight behind former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. And the president’s pull with his party’s voters was evident yet again just over the weekend, when Sen. Bill Cassidy received only a quarter of the vote in Louisiana’s GOP primary and became the first elected senator in 14 years to be denied renomination.
What could give Massie a shot at surviving is the quirky political character of his Kentucky district, which stretches along the Ohio River from just outside Louisville nearly to the West Virginia border. The heart of the district, though, is in the Cincinnati suburbs, a strongly Republican area with a pronounced libertarian flair.
Unlike Cassidy, who had voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, Massie has run afoul of the president for the procedural headaches he has caused the party in the narrowly divided House, which generally have stemmed from libertarian-infused ideological objections. In theory, at least, this is the kind of district that could be forgiving of that kind of apostasy. Notably, Sen. Rand Paul, who shares similar libertarian-style views with Massie, ran strongly in the area when he first won his seat in 2010.
In fact, when Trump first ran for president in 2016, he actually lost what is now Kentucky’s 4th District to Sen. Ted Cruz in the Republican primary, even as he won the state overall. In particular, Trump significantly underperformed his statewide vote share of 35% in the three main metro Cincinnati counties: Boone, Kenton and Campbell, which together account for about half of the GOP primary electorate in the district.
Kentucky’s 4th District also includes Oldham County, outside of Louisville, which is the state’s wealthiest county and contains the kinds of higher-income, college-educated Republican voters who have exhibited some reservations about Trump.
There are also a number of small, rural counties in the district that are more demographically suited to Trump, but combined they won’t make up a majority of the vote tonight.
It may be that at this moment in his presidency, Trump’s full-throated opposition is enough to derail nearly any Republican candidate in any primary anywhere. But if there’s a place where one could conceivably survive, it’s probably this district.
Steve will answer NBC News subscriber questions about the midterm elections and more in a live Q&A on Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET. Submit your questions here →
🗳️ What else to watch: Outside of Kentucky, five other states are holding primaries today: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Oregon and Pennsylvania. Ben Kamisar and Bridget Bowman lay out the key races here →
President Donald Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for Senate, dealing a massive political blow to longtime Sen. John Cornyn ahead of next week’s Republican primary runoff.
“Ken is a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post on Truth Social.
He continued, “John Cornyn is a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough.”
Trump’s backing of Paxton, after early voting in the runoff began Monday, comes after weeks of speculation about whether the president would weigh in on the race. He had seemed ready to support Cornyn after the initial March primary, but he later tied his endorsement to passage of the SAVE America Act, a proposal overhauling the nation’s voting laws.
Paxton said he would consider dropping out of the race if Senate leadership agreed to nix the 60-vote threshold to end debate on legislation, known as the filibuster, in order to pass the measure.
Cornyn responded to Trump’s endorsement in a statement on X noting that he has supported Trump’s agenda and that the president “has consistently called me a friend in this race.”
“It is now time for Texas Republican voters to decide if they want a strong nominee to help our GOP candidates down ballot and defeat [James] Talarico in November, or a weak nominee who jeopardizes everything we care about.”
The backstory: Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally who has backed Paxton, said that the Paxton campaign sent Trump polling showing him ahead in the primary. In addition, Bannon said Trump allies made sure that past negative comments Cornyn had made about Trump over the years were top of mind.
A person close to Trump also pointed to Paxton’s trajectory in recent polling as a factor in the president’s endorsement, as well as recent successes for his preferred candidates in other primaries.
“He has had some big recent wins, I think he both likes the attention and is feeling a moment,” the person said.
Bannon also noted how the endorsement came despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune and numerous other senators urging the president to back Cornyn.
“This is as much a vote of no confidence in John Thune as it is a vote of confidence in Ken Paxton,” Bannon said.
Thune told reporters this afternoon of Trump’s endorsement, “It’s his decision.”
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.
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CORRECTION (May 20, 2026, 10:25 a.m. ET): A previous version of this newsletter misstated where Sen. Rand Paul lives. He lives in Bowling Green, not the Cincinnati suburbs. The reference has been updated.
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