By Siobhan Hughes

Top Republicans warned Rep. Thomas Massie that he was sabotaging his career. Supercharged fundraising numbers in his GOP primary race show they may have been on to something.

The Kentucky Republican, who angered President Trump when he forced House members to return to D.C. to pass the $2 trillion stimulus bill, is now back home in Garrison, Ky., fighting to stay in Congress ahead of the state's June primary. Lawmakers of both parties called him reckless, and President Trump termed him a "third rate Grandstander" and said he should be kicked out of the GOP.

"I thought I might be signing my political death sentence," Mr. Massie said in an interview. "But I did it for principled reasons."

The four-term congressman, once lauded as a hero by conservatives for his successful drive to oust former House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), faces a challenge from Todd McMurtry, a lawyer best known for representing a high-school student in a defamation case involving a confrontation with an American Indian activist in Washington.

The attention to Mr. Massie's stimulus stance has injected more energy into the race. Mr. Massie says his campaign has raised $214,000 online since last Friday and has more checks that he has not yet processed, more than half of what he raised in the entire 2018 cycle, when he had no primary challenger in the safe Republican district. Mr. McMurtry, meanwhile, says he has raised more than $300,000 in the same period. First-quarter fundraising reports are due later this month.

Mr. McMurtry, who joined the race in January, argues that Mr. Massie is out of step with Mr. Trump, and that his recent decision showed a lack of judgment and was a betrayal of the White House. In an interview, Mr. McMurtry said his phone keeps buzzing with texts and calls from Kentucky residents and Washington officials that say, "you're going to win -- that was a really dumb move on his part."

There have been no publicly released opinion polls in the race.

Mr. Massie said he knew what he was getting into. He argued that the biggest spending bill in American history shouldn't have passed without a formal vote.

"People are going to hate you," he said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) warned him in a phone call last week. He said Mr. McCarthy told him before hanging up: "Good luck with your election." Mr. McCarthy's office didn't respond to a request for comment.

"My sense is that Massie was the clear favorite to win renomination beforehand, but that he self-sabotaged his primary chances by forcing the vote," said David Wasserman, who tracks House races for the Cook Political Report. "Now it's a highly competitive race, and it's on the national radar."

The wild card in the race is Mr. Trump, who won Kentucky by 30 points in 2016 and remains popular in the state. He hasn't indicated whether he plans to weigh in further on Mr. Massie. The president's re-election campaign declined to comment. A person familiar with Mr. Trump's thinking said there were no current plans to campaign with Mr. McMurtry.

Mr. Massie argues that the stimulus law amounts to a transfer of wealth from individuals to businesses, while not providing adequate resources for testing. By his calculation, the $1,200 in checks for most Americans will be dwarfed by the debt they will effectively take on by backing government loans to businesses.

"A lot of people are extremely receptive," said Sebastian Torres, a 24-year-old law clerk who plans to vote for Mr. Massie again. "We're trusting them with trillions of dollars and to think that they're not even going to be on the record with those votes and what that money might be going for?"

Also helping Mr. Massie: Mr. McMurtry made a series of negative comments about Mr. Trump on his Facebook page, including calling him an idiot. Mr. Massie turned those comments into a TV advertisement that he has run in Florida when Mr. Trump vacations at his Mar-A-Lago resort. Mr. McMurtry has said his past comments were wrong.

The president's re-election campaign declined to comment. A person familiar with his thinking said there were no current plans to campaign with Mr. McMurtry.

Mike Ward, a former Democratic congressman who is now a political consultant, said the big question is how much energy Mr. Trump will put into the race.

"Does he really give a darn, and even if he does, does that translate over? If he argues Thomas Massie is too much of an independent voice, he could be making his case for him," Mr. Ward said.

--Catherine Lucey contributed to this article.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 03, 2020 12:18 ET (16:18 GMT)

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