Did Rep. Thomas Massie lose by 10,280 votes in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District Republican primary in May 2026, while candidate Ed Gallrein received 10,854 mail-in votes? And did Massie receive 50,301 votes out of 66,874 total votes in the 2022 primary, compared with 47,539 out of 105,361 total votes in 2026? Yes, those tallies are all true: Election results from the Kentucky Secretary of State's office match these numbers. Turnout can vary greatly from election to election, and there's no evidence that the correlation between Massie's margin of loss and the number of absentee ballots is anything other than coincidental.
The claim appeared in a post and images (archived here) by the @Ryanmatta account on X on May 20, 2026. It read:
You mean to tell me that Thomas Massie got less votes in this Primary Election than the last primary election when over 45,000 ish new voters showed up to vote in this years [sic] primary?
Ed Gallrein received 10,854 "mail in" ballots votes tonight alone.
Thomas Massie lost by 10,280 votes.
This is what the images from the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @Ryanmatta on X.)
May 19, 2026, primary election
As of May 20, 2026, the unofficial results for the Massie-Gallrein primary race (archived here) matched the numbers in the social media post:
(Image source: Kentucky Secretary of State.)
The social media post calls them "mail in" ballots, but they're actually known as absentee ballots. Still, the total number of them is 10,854, according to the Secretary of State's (SOS) website. The margin of victory for Gallrein was 10,283 (57,822 minus 47,539). That's essentially the same number as the 10,280 from the post.
While the third image from the social post suggests a correlation between the two numbers -- "Ed Gallrein received 10,854 'mail in' ballots votes [sic] tonight. Thomas Massie lost by 10,280 votes" -- there's no evidence to suggest the figures are anything other than a coincidence.
May 14, 2022, primary election
The official results from the 2022 primary (archived here) are accurately stated in the social media post. Massie received 50,301 votes out of 66,874 total, according to the SOS. It is also true that even though more people voted in the 2026 primary than in 2022, Massie received fewer votes than in that primary (47,539 in 2026 vs. 50,301 in 2022).
Every election is different. The political dynamics and issues at stake can change from cycle to cycle, influencing both turnout and candidate support. Just because more people voted does not mean a candidate will receive more votes or even the same number.
