Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his Republican primary Tuesday night. He can blame, in part, donors with no discernible ties to his district.

“Welcome to the most expensive Congressional primary ever in the 250-year history of this country,” Massie said in his concession speech. “It started nine months ago — they didn’t even have a candidate and they decided they wanted to take me out.”

The race between Massie and Ed Gallrein, his challenger backed by President Donald Trump, topped even some general elections in spending. It was funded primarily by donors and moneyed interests from outside the Kentucky district.

The vast majority of named individual contributions made to either campaign came from donors outside the district, a NOTUS analysis of Federal Election Commission data found. For both candidates, less than 6% of named individual contributions came from zip codes in the district, though Massie had more contributions from people within his district and in the state.

Millions of dollars were raised and spent in hopes of persuading a constituency of less than a million who to vote for.

“Whenever we have a competitive race, the money floods in,” said Stephen Voss, a professor at the University of Kentucky and expert in Kentucky politics. “What’s unique about this race is that the forces pumping money into Kentucky aren’t the usual ones. Usually it’s sort of standard left-right attempts to take down our Republican incumbent, or in the case of Gov. [Andy] Beshear, take down the Democratic incumbent. This one, we’re sucking in money for different reasons.”

The reasons: Massie’s national profile, his propensity for defying Trump, and his anti-establishment position on issues like Israel.

The FEC data referenced in some of this reporting was parsed and analyzed using Python by Claude, with results verified by NOTUS.

Kentucky’s 4th District has seen $32.6M in ad spending, according to AdImpact. The two largest portions of that figure are for ads supporting Gallrein and ads attacking Massie.

Pro-Israel groups including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Republican Jewish Coalition played an outsized role in seeking to unseat Massie for his position on the war in Iran and broader politics concerning Israel. They poured millions of dollars into Gallrein’s campaigns and attack ads against Massie.

“How did this race become the most expensive race in the history of Congress, for a primary? It’s because three billionaires from outside of Kentucky have funneled millions of dollars here to try to buy a seat,” Massie said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “And so, it’s not just the president’s tweets. I can sustain those without a problem. It’s because Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer have dumped money in here.”

Gallrein also benefited from money though Trump’s base of donor support. MAGA KY, a super PAC started by top Trump strategists and funded by Singer and John Paulson raised millions to support the Navy SEAL officer.

Some of the funds did not seem to come from Trump loyalists. The Daily Caller reported that the majority of candidates who contributed the maximum individual contributions to Gallrein had contributed to Democrats before. Some of these donors have also contributed to AIPAC, according to a review of Gallrein’s FEC reports.

Massie’s campaign received a boost from billionaire dollars too. Jeff Yass donated millions last year to a PAC that supports Massie. Massie’s fundraising has also been buoyed by libertarian groups and allies in Congress, like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Jim Jordan.

In the end, Massie was defeated by Gallrein — a first-time politician hand-selected by Trump to thwart Massie, who has built a reputation for bucking both the president and the broader Republican conference. Gallrein will face Democrat Melissa Claire Strange in November.

Gallrein’s win underscores the president’s continued grip on the Republican Party nationwide — Trump vowed to defeat Massie, and spent considerable resources to bring about that outcome. But it also points to the influence of money on elections.

Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform at Issue One, a nonprofit group that advocates for reducing the influence of money in politics, said the race drew donations in part because “Trump and his allies want to make an example out of” Massie.

“By unleashing massive spending here, the president and his allies are showing they are prepared to go after any member of Congress who is deemed disloyal,” he said in an email.

Massie’s campaign primarily raised money through donations that were smaller, but more numerous, than Gallrein’s campaign. Across roughly 3,350 unique named individual donations between January and April, Massie’s median contribution was $250. For Gallrein, 1,164 donors contributed an average of $1,000. The figures underscore Massie’s broad base of grassroots donor support that ultimately wasn’t enough to carry him across the finish line.

Not reflected in those figures are itemized individual contributions with no donor name recorded, which total $81,000 and $151,000 for Massie and Gallrein, respectively. Both also raised money from unitemized individual contributions — none more than $200, but collectively contributing $1,034,545 to Massie’s campaign and $184,739 to Gallrein’s between January and April.

For both candidates, a significant amount of campaign contributions from outside Kentucky originated from states including California, Texas and Florida.

Neither campaign responded to a request for comment.

Elections get more expensive every cycle. And with more outside spending often comes more misinformation, Voss said.

Many of the ads in the race featured falsehoods or misleading information, like one advertisement featuring Massie cavorting with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar that was made with artificial intelligence.

“Usually when you have ads funded by outside groups, especially when it’s funded by money that’s harder to trace, the ads tend to be more provocative and less respectful of the truth than back in the day,” Voss said, “when it was political parties and campaigns that did most of the advertising, and people who had to worry about their long-term reputation. A fly-by-night campaign group doesn’t have to worry about its reputation.”