Conspiracy theories swirl over canceled Iowa poll, pushed by Sanders and Yang supporters

NBC News ^ | 2/3/2020 | Ben Collins

[simpson96]

Supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Andrew Yang pushed false conspiracy theories on Twitter over the weekend tied to the canceled Des Moines Register poll, effectively commandeering a trending hashtag to convey the idea that their candidates are more successful than the public has been led to believe.

The Des Moines Register poll, a closely watched indicator of the Iowa race, was canceled after at least one interviewer apparently omitted Pete Buttigieg’s name from the randomized list of candidates the surveyor read. The political website Axios reported that the reason for the error was that an interviewer increased the font size of the questionnaire on a computer screen, leaving the bottom choice invisible.

But supporters of Sanders and Yang decided, without evidence, that the reason for the poll’s cancellation had to be that their candidates had high poll numbers, which the newspaper or the polling company wanted to suppress for some reason. (The Des Moines Register poll is actually one of the most respected polls in the country, known for its integrity and accuracy.)

Sanders and Yang supporters flooded the hashtag, “#ReleaseThePoll,” which was one of the top trends on Saturday night.(snip)

The trending topic was pushed even further up the trending topics leaderboard by supporters of Yang, who hopped onto the hashtag 45 minutes later with an identical conspiracy theory, claiming with no evidence that the poll was pulled because it showed Yang jumping up several points. Some even claimed, also without any evidence, that Yang had taken the lead in the unreleased poll.

“Conspiracy theorists are looking for unusual events such as this,” Grygiel said of the poll being canceled

[uranium penguin]

The MSM is ALL IN for Bloomberg.

they are scared Sh@%Less of Bernie. they know Biden is a joke. Warren is unlectectable and the rest have no hope.

So, they need to get rid of those in the way. And push Bloomberg and possibly a super delegate/ brokered convention.

[a little elbow grease]

Bill Durham (CTH) says:

"Technically Bernie is not a Democrat. When the DNC gets really worried, they will play that final card. It’s in the air now."

"They are holding off because they are scared he will go Ross Perot on them. He is Jill Stein on steroids. If there are any maga millionaires out there, it’s time to wine and dine Bernie."

____________________

LOL ........... interesting. I wonder if Bernie could use another nice house on a lake.

[DJtex]

The link to the spiked poll was great but one poster there said that the Iowa caucus was worthless. Actually, 9 out of the last 12 Caucus winners have gone on to win the Democratic nomination.

[cgbg]

false conspiracy theories

When the mass media says that, you can bet the "conspiracy theory" is "conspiracy fact".

The _big_ story of the conspiracy theory is that Biden was shown in fourth place in the poll. If this was the result after tonight it would be a historic collapse for a front-runner.

As usual, the lying media buried the lead.

[Damifino]

If Sanders wins tonight, the Dem apparatchiks will go into meltdown..

If Biden wins tonight the Sanders' camp will go into full meltdown..

[Svartalfiar]

How many other polls were manipulated?

All of them. Ever.

[Svartalfiar]

Very suspicious to me. One poller, on one day, at one terminal decided to increase the font size because there were so many many candidates named they were hard to read. The names were randomized and the bottom name didn't always show up.

If they were randomized, then every name should have been hidden an equal amount essentially. No one else complained? Maybe it's because everyone is so used to their phones/computers that they were all 'smart' enough to scroll down to find their candidate, the few times it hid their choice? So this one Pete guy is the only idiot that didn't think to try scrolling down?