Cory Booker Earns Four Pinocchios Over Voter Suppression Claims

During this week’s Democratic Debate, Cory Booker claimed that President Trump only won the state of Michigan in 2016 due to the suppression of black votes by Republicans and Russia.

“We lost the state of Michigan because everybody from Republicans to Russians were targeting the suppression of African American voters,” the New Jersey senator said during the Democratic presidential primary debate on Thursday.  Trump won Michigan by less than 1%, receiving only around 10,700 more votes than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post fact-checker gave Booker’s claim four Pinocchios, the maximum available, indicating the false statement was a “whopper.”

In the article, Richard Hasen, a University of California political science professor, stated: “There is certainly credibility to the idea that Russians targeted African Americans to suppress their vote … It is also true that Republican legislatures and elected officials in some states have passed laws and enacted procedures that appear aimed at making it harder for likely Democrats to vote, and African Americans are the most reliable Democratic voters.

“But I have seen no evidence that the extent of these activities in the state of Michigan were responsible for the depression of turnout in the African American community such that it swung the vote in Michigan to Trump.”

Booker’s team naturally criticized the fact check, but failed to cite any data to back up Booker’s assertions.

It is worth nothing that, nationwide, black voter turnout fell dramatically in 2016, after reaching record highs in both 2008 and 2012, when Barack Obama was on the ballot.  The percentage of black voter turnout in 2016 was actually similar to what it was in 2004.  To me, this suggests that there simply wasn’t a candidate on the 2016 ballot who excited black voters enough to get them to vote – especially compared to Obama.

Thoughts?