This Republican who stood up to Trump just released his first campaign ad. Here's what it tells you.
Plus: This conservation campaign set up “Not For Sale” signs and a hotline
This Republican who stood up to Trump just released his first campaign ad. Here's what it tells you.
Plenty of Republican lawmakers who’ve crossed President Donald Trump over the years have opted to retire from Congress rather than face a Trump-backed primary candidate. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) isn’t one of them. Instead, he’s now facing down a Trump-aligned super PAC to keep his job, and his first campaign ad of the 2026 cycle shows how he plans to run against his own party’s establishment.
After Massie voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump allies last month launched Kentucky MAGA, a single-purpose super PAC built to boot Massie from office. It’s headed by Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio, and Massie said the group is spending $1.8 million to beat him. Its attack ads attempt to link the libertarian “Mr. No” Massie to progressive Democrats, but the nonpartisan FactCheck dot org said the ad distorts how Massie diverges from Trump. Massie, who’s served in the House since 2012 and has $1.7 million in his own campaign war chest, is pushing back with his first ad, which shows how to run against your own party in a primary.
In “Just Getting Started,” released last week, a bearded Massie speaks directly to camera and blames attack ads against him on “holding the Washington machine accountable.” Then he lists his credentials, like being the only vote against the 2020 pandemic stimulus CARES Act and voting against the OBBB. Though the CARES Act passed under Trump, Massie emphasizes its passing under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, framing his stances as less him standing up to Trump than him standing up for the conservative principle of limited government no matter the party in power. Then Massie says he’s leading the push for a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, going there and proving the topic won’t be off limits in the primaries, and closes out the ad.
“I’m Thomas Massie, and I approve this message because I’m not folding, I’m fighting, and I’m just getting started,” he says.
Massie, who grew a beard over the holidays and hasn’t yet updated his website with photos showing his new facial hair, is playing a fighter and defender of conservative values, MAGA be damned. That independent streak might not work everywhere. But in a state like Kentucky where Republicans like former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul have already given voters the permission structure to buck Trump, it might find success, especially now that Trump’s handling of the Epstein case is testing his hold over his base.
With independent party affiliation at all-time highs, Massie won’t be the only candidate running from his party in the midterms. The major party brands are unpopular, but to win a primary, candidates still have to appeal to the party’s bases, and Massie is attempting to thread the needle of Republican primaries in the MAGA era by using traditional party values to rationalize his breaks from party orthodoxy. If he’s successful, he’ll prove there’s a route to beating the Trump machine without bending at the knee.
Previously in Yello:
This conservation campaign set up “Not For Sale” signs and a hotline
To draw attention to the sale of public lands, the nonprofit media lab Amplifier launched a public art campaign with a hotline attached.
“Not For Sale,” which started last month, involves home sale-style signs posted and photographed in nature and in Washington, D.C., where graphics were projected onto the Washington Monument and run on digital billboard trucks in town.
The hotline, which is printed on the “for sale” signs like a realtor’s phone number, leads to a recorded message of a man who tells callers that “Congress is trying to sell off America’s Arctic to Big Oil, land that belongs to all of us.” The man asks callers to leave a message they have to the people trying to sell it. “Even if you never stand in the Arctic, you can still stand up for it,” he says.
“Not For Sale” began in Montana and consisted of “daily storytelling from those closest to the land and urgent calls to action,” according to Amplifier, which didn’t respond to a request for comment. The group said in a statement the message of the campaign is that public lands “belong to all of us. Once they’re sold off, we don’t get them back.”
Audio from the calls, edited and published on Not For Sale’s Instagram account, is like the public lands version of Madonna "Confessions" hotline from 2005. “Please, don’t be shortsighted and sell out to special interests that make donations to your campaigns,” says one caller who says he’s been “working to protect the Arctic for over 40 years.” “There’s no sane reason to open these lands to oil and gas development,” he says.
The campaign encouraged people to call their senators to speak out against a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have allowed the sale of public lands for housing and infrastructure, which Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) removed from the final version of the bill last month following public pressure. Organizers have since turned their attention to protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Political groups have found that the great outdoors are a great opportunity to activate voters, but in Amplifer’s case, the hotline points the microphone back at the people. It’s a unique take on user-generated content. “Not For Sale” lets people speak for themselves.
Have you seen this?
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History of political design
“Monica Lewinsky, 1998” by Herb Ritts. The legendary photographer shot Lewinsky for a Vanity Fair piece titled "Who's That Girl." Lewinsky told Cindy Crawford in a recent episode of her podcast "Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky" it was her first photoshoot ever. "That's what a global scandal will get you!" Lewinsky said.
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