Thomas Harold Massie (born January 13, 1971) is an American politician. A member of the Republican Party, Massie has been the United States representative for Kentucky's 4th congressional district since 2012.
Raised in Vanceburg, Kentucky, Massie earned two degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on computer simulation. He later founded a startup based on that work, returning to Kentucky after selling the company. In 2010, Massie was elected judge-executive of Lewis County.
A libertarian Republican, Massie was first elected to Congress in a 2012 special election with the backing of the Tea Party movement. His staunch opposition to increases in federal spending, reauthorization of warrantless surveillance programs, and interventionism have earned him the nickname "Mr. No". During President Donald Trump's second administration, Massie drew national attention for his disputes with Republican leadership over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He ran for re-election in 2026 in what was the most expensive U.S. House primary in history, losing renomination to Ed Gallrein, the Trump-endorsed candidate.
Early life and education Massie was born in Huntington, West Virginia. He was raised in an Appalachian American culture in Vanceburg, Kentucky. His father was a beer distributor. He met his first wife, Rhonda, at Lewis County High School in Vanceburg.
Massie earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1993 and a Master of Science in mechanical engineering in 1996 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His master's thesis was titled, "Initial haptic explorations with the phantom: virtual touch through point interaction." He participated in the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team in 1990, helping to build the team's car, Galaxy. In the team's first race in 1990, he was the driver for Galaxy in the 1990 GM Sunrayce, finishing at Churchill Downs after ten days, winning sixth place.
In 1992, Massie won MIT's then-named 2.70 ("Introduction to Design and Manufacturing", now named 2.007) Design Competition. MIT professor Woodie Flowers, who pioneered the 2.70 contest, mentioned that Massie watched this contest on television in seventh grade and wanted to come to MIT to win it.
Early career In 1993, Massie and his wife founded a company, SensAble Devices Inc., that allowed users to feel digital objects that appeared on a screen, based on a technology he invented while in school. He completed his BSc the same year; his thesis was on the same topic, Design of a three-degree of freedom force-reflecting haptic interface. In 1995, Massie won the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventors and the $10,000 David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Grand Prize in the sixth annual MIT $10K Entrepreneurial Business Plan Competition. In 1996, his company was reincorporated as SensAble Technologies, Inc., after MIT's Bill Aulet joined him as a partner. He raised $32 million of venture capital, employed 70 people, and obtained 24 patents during his time at the company, which he sold in 2003.
Lewis County Judge Executive In 2010, Massie ran for Judge Executive of Lewis County. He won the primary election, defeating the incumbent by a large margin, and then beat the Democratic nominee by nearly 40 points. Massie also campaigned for then–U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul, speaking to various Tea Party groups on his behalf.
Massie resigned as Lewis County judge-executive effective July 1, 2012.
U.S. House of Representatives 2012 election
In December 2011, Congressman Geoff Davis announced his decision to retire from his seat in Kentucky's 4th congressional district. Massie announced his candidacy on January 10, 2012. He was endorsed by Senator Rand Paul and Texas congressman Ron Paul. He was also endorsed by FreedomWorks, Club for Growth (which spent $500,000 on broadcast ads supporting him), Gun Owners of America, and Young Americans for Liberty.
On May 22, 2012, Massie won the Republican nomination, beating his closest opponents, state representative Alecia Webb-Edgington and Boone County judge-executive Gary Moore, by a double-digit margin. In his victory speech, Massie thanked "the Tea Party, the liberty movement, and grassroots Ronald Reagan Republicans". He faced Democratic nominee Bill Adkins in the general election, and was expected to win the election by a wide margin. Massie resigned as Lewis County judge-executive effective July 1, 2012, to focus on his campaign for Congress and allow an election to be immediately held in order to replace him. He was succeeded by Lewis County deputy judge-executive John Patrick Collins, who was appointed temporarily by Governor Steve Beshear. On July 31, 2012, Congressman Geoff Davis resigned from office, citing a family health issue for his abrupt departure. On August 1, 2012, the Republican Party committee for Kentucky's 4th congressional district voted unanimously to endorse Massie as the party's nominee once a special election was called. Beshear called a special election to take place on the same day as the general election, November 6. This meant Massie ran in two separate elections on the same daya special election for the right to serve the final two months of Davis's fourth term (within the lines that had been drawn after the 2000 census), and a regular election for a full two-year term (within the lines that had been drawn for the 2010 census). On November 6, Massie won both elections by a wide margin.
Tenure
Massie was sworn in for the balance of Davis's term on November 13, 2012. He thus gained two months' seniority on the rest of the 2012 House freshman class. As a measure of how much the Cincinnati suburbs have dominated the district, he became the first congressman from the district's eastern portion in 45 years.
Upon arriving in Congress he was assigned to serve on three committees: Transportation and Infrastructure, Oversight and Government Reform, and Science, Space and Technology. He later became chair of the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, replacing outgoing chair Ben Quayle.
Massie broke from the majority of his party by opposing the reelection of Speaker of the House John Boehner, instead casting his vote for a fellow libertarian, Republican Justin Amash of Michigan. In May 2013, he voted against the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, which passed 390–3. In December 2013, he was the only congressman to vote against extending the 1988 Undetectable Firearms Act for another ten years.
In March 2014, Massie voted against a bill to name Israel an American strategic partner. Massie voted no because the bill would have subsidized green energy companies in Israel. He said he would not support subsidies for American green energy companies, let alone foreign ones. The bill passed by a margin of 412–10, with 6 voting present.
In May 2014, Massie objected to a voice vote to award golf star Jack Nicklaus a gold medal recognizing his "service to the nation", and demanded a roll call vote. The vote passed easily, 371–10. Through mid-June 2014, Massie had voted "no" at least 324 times in the 113th Congress – opposing one of every three measures that came to the House floor. Politico dubbed him "Mr. No".
In 2015, Massie was the sole member of the House to vote "present" on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear agreement, citing Constitutional concerns that the treaties are not ratified by the House of Representatives and that he had no authority to vote for or against the nuclear deal. In November 2016, he voted against an extension of U.S. sanctions against Iran, the only member of the House to do so.
In February 2017, Massie introduced a one-page bill that would abolish the United States Department of Education, and cosponsored a bill that would abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.
In April 2017, he expressed skepticism over the role of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in the 2017 Khan Shaykhun chemical attack. In May 2017, he was the sole House member to vote against sanctions on North Korea.
In July 2017, Massie joined representatives Amash and John Duncan Jr., and senators Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders in opposing a bill to impose new economic sanctions against Russia, Iran, and North Korea. President Donald Trump opposed the bill, arguing that relations with Russia were already "at an all-time and dangerous low". He did, however, sign the bill.
On December 29, 2017, Massie voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Before voting, he said he would support the bill to cut taxes, but that he would oppose "new government spending", despite the $1.5 trillion estimated to be added to the national debt according to the Congressional Budget Office in the wake of the bill being passed.
In October 2018, Massie spoke at the John Birch Society's 60th anniversary celebration. He talked about government corruption and spoke out against the advisability of an Article V Convention to amend the Constitution.
On March 26, 2019, Massie was one of 14 Republicans to vote with all House Democrats to override Trump's veto of a measure unwinding Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the southern border.
In 2019, Massie signed a letter to Trump led by Representative Ro Khanna and Senator Rand Paul asserting that it was "long past time to rein in the use of force that goes beyond congressional authorization" and that they hoped this would "serve as a model for ending hostilities in the future – in particular, as you and your administration seek a political solution to our involvement in Afghanistan". Massie was also one of nine lawmakers to sign a letter to Trump requesting a meeting with him and urging him to sign "Senate Joint Resolution 7, which invokes the War Powers Act of 1973 to end unauthorized US military participation in the Saudi-led coalition's armed conflict against Yemen's Houthi forces, initiated in 2015 by the Obama administration". They asserted that the "Saudi-led coalition's imposition of an air-land-and-sea blockade as part of its war against Yemen's Houthis has continued to prevent the unimpeded distribution of these vital commodities, contributing to the suffering and death of vast numbers of civilians throughout the country" and that Trump's approval of the resolution through his signing would give a "powerful signal to the Saudi-led coalition to bring the four-year-old war to a close".
On April 10, 2019, during former United States secretary of state John Kerry's testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Massie called Kerry's political science degree from Yale University a "pseudoscience degree" and called Kerry's position on climate change "pseudoscience". Kerry responded, "Are you serious? I mean, this is really a serious happening here?"
In July 2019, Massie was the only Republican among 17 members of Congress to vote against a House resolution opposing efforts to boycott Israel and the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.
In November 2019, he was the sole "no" vote in Congress on the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, which he called an "escalation" with the People's Republic of China. He told Fox Business that he agreed with "90 per cent" of the bill but disagreed with sanctions. He was also the sole vote against the Uighur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response (UIGHUR) Act in December 2019. In explaining his vote, Massie said that it would be hypocritical to take drastic action against China while still doing business with it, writing on Twitter that "please consider whether you committed enough to the issue that you would personally go a week without buying something made in China." In December 2021, he was the sole vote against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.