Yesterday I heard a discussion of the Massie defeat in Kentucky’s 4th, and I was alarmed to hear that the only age group Massie didn’t win was those over 65, who turned out in great numbers. I also heard that the young voted overwhelmingly for Massie to the tune of +30.

Usually numbers about age groups rest on exit polling. But today, when I tried to document the age-group results, I couldn’t find any exit polls at all. I did find this Daily Caller post on Facebook entitled, “Ed Gallrein Has Boomers To Thank For Defeating Thomas Massie.”

It began like this:

The Baby Boomer generation overwhelmingly voted for Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein, who ousted seven-term incumbent Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in a GOP primary Tuesday night.

Seventy-two percent of voters between the ages of 26 and 35 supported Massie, while 16.2% backed Gallrein, according to a Quantus Insight poll from May 13. A majority of voters ages 66 to 75, 61.8%, supported Gallrein and 27.1% of that age group supported Massie.

What’s wrong with this picture? The poll’s date was May 13, not an exit poll at all and perhaps not reflecting the actual vote. The piece went on to state:

KY-04 GOP Primary: Results by Age Group

Age 17-25: Massie +25
Age 26-35: Massie +56
Age 36-45: Massie +38
Age 46-55: Massie +17
——
Age 56-65: Gallrein +18
Age 66-75: Gallrein +35
Age 76+: Gallrein +33@QuantusInsights | 5/11-12 | 908 LV https://t.co/H7juBRgxXr pic.twitter.com/pjcRguiF4a

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 13, 2026

Those younger age groups look disturbing, considering that it could reflect an anti-Israel antisemitic turn among young voters on the right. But when you look more carefully at the samples, the youngest groups are small – in some cases extremely small, so small that it makes the results meaningless or nearly so.

For example, there were 4 people in the 17-25 age group., In the 26-35 age group, the sample was bigger but still quite small: 67 people. In the 36-45 age group there were 125 people and in the 46-55 group there were 136. Those numbers over 100 increase the validity but still have a fairly large margin of error (couldn’t find that figure, though). And in the 46-55 group there were also 12.5% undecided, which could have nearly evened the vote if all of the undecideds went for Gallrein. In addition, in general, “undecideds” in the poll leaned toward Gallrein.

In the older age groups of 56-65 and 66-75 the samples were decent-sized: in the 240s. And those groups went strongly for Gallrein.

So it’s difficult to tell what it all means. Not only are the numbers flawed but they don’t say what actually happened in the voting booths (I assume there are still voting booths in Kentucky?). You might ask why I pay attention to polls, but my answer is that they’re pretty much all we have to go on in trying to understand election results, despite their many flaws.

Massie himself is claiming that despite his win, he’s the wave of the future:

The Kentucky congressman claimed in his speech after his defeat that young voters were still on his side.

“People that want somebody that will go along to get along, I’ve never heard of that strategy but that seems to be what the voters want,” Massie said. “But not the young voters.”

The crowd was still energetic despite Massie’s loss, and started a chant of “No more wars!” that the congressman joined in on. Massie’s speech meandered through different topics and touched on other politicians before another chant started of “America First!”

I think Massie’s future will involve a lot of talk show and podcast appearances, bragging about his success with youth. Maybe he’ll even score an appearance with Tucker Carlson, so they can rant about Jewish influence and the new wink/wink term for Jews, the “Epstein class.”