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![Claim that Dems stole election with poor voters is bogus (2) Claim that Dems stole election with poor voters is bogus (2)](https://i0.wp.com/static.politifact.com/CACHE/images/politifact/mugs/politifact-mugs-Anonymous_people_/d0c13da11ad4bc5f48f6b798046f5ef9.jpg)
The Gateway Pundit
stated on October 17, 2021 in a headline:
Democrats “manufactured votes from low income voters to steal the battleground states.”
![Claim that Dems stole election with poor voters is bogus (4) Claim that Dems stole election with poor voters is bogus (4)](https://i0.wp.com/static.politifact.com/politifact/rulings/tom_ruling_pof.png)
- Elections
- Poverty
- Facebook Fact-checks
- The Gateway Pundit
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Voters line up before polls open on Election Day at a precinct in Warren, Mich., Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020. (AP)
By Amy ShermanOctober 19, 2021
If Your Time is short
A study by the Poor People’s Campaign found that about 35% of the 2020 presidential electorate had household incomes below $50,000.
The Gateway Pundit used the study to falsely claim that Democrats used low-income voters to steal the election.
There was no evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome of the presidential election.
See the sources for this fact-check
Donald Trump’s allies have floated all sorts of wild theories to argue that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election. One right-wing website is now citing a study of low-income voters to claim that it explains how Democrats purportedly pulled off their caper.
But the website’s statements are bogus.
"Democrats reveal big clue in the big steal: operatives manufactured votes from low income voters to steal the battleground states," says the headline on an Oct. 17 Facebook post by the Gateway Pundit. "Start the canvassing!"
The article under the headline highlights a Huffington Post report about a study of low-income voters in the 2020 presidential election. The article invites Trump supporters to use this information to discover "the fraud" and canvass "lower-income citizens who reportedly voted in 2020."
The study about low-income voters is real. But the conclusion that Democrats admitted to using low-income voters to steal the election in favor of Joe Biden is false. Low-income people are allowed to vote, after all. And the Gateway Pundit failed to recognize the difference between voter outreach and voter fraud.
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
The study cited by the Gateway Pundit and the Huffington Post was by the Poor People’s Campaign. The group, formed in recent years, was modeled after Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign to mobilize poor people for political change. The group is nonpartisan, but many of the policies it advocates align with goals on the left, such as expanding voting rights and raising the minimum wage.
In the final months of the 2020 election, the group reached out to about 2 million low-income voters in multiple states with a history of low voter participation to encourage them to vote. The study defined low-income voters as those with an annual household income of less than $50,000.
The study concluded that 35% of the voting electorate who cast ballots were low-income voters, and that percentage rose in some battleground states.
"This cuts against common misperceptions that poor and low-income people are apathetic about politics or inconsequential to electoral outcomes," the study stated.
The Huffington Post cited the study to assert that low-income voters were the key to Biden’s victory, though the study didn’t state that.
Featured Fact-check
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Threads posts
stated on July 3, 2024 in a post on Threads
CNN reported July 3 that “Joe has decided to drop out of the 2024 Presidential race and will be replaced by Hunter Biden.”
![Claim that Dems stole election with poor voters is bogus (11) Claim that Dems stole election with poor voters is bogus (11)](https://i0.wp.com/static.politifact.com/politifact/rulings/meter-false.jpg)
"We cannot use the numbers to say that low-income voters were the decisive factor in the election outcome," Shailly Gupta Barnes, author of the study, told PolitiFact in an email. "However, given the small margins of victory in multiple states, their sheer size and vote share indicate the potential that the low-income electorate can have on election outcomes if more directly engaged."
The Gateway Pundit made a more far-reaching conclusion: that Democrats used low-income voters to steal the election, although nothing in the study backs that up. One hole in that argument: The study shows that the battleground state with the highest share of low-income voters, Florida, went for Trump.
Other research suggests that low-income voters played a smaller role in 2020 than in 2016. The Pew Research Center, which studied the characteristics of the 2020 electorate, found that "as in 2016, voters in 2020 had higher incomes" than nonvoters. Pew found that 35% of voters had family incomes of less than $50,000 in 2020, a drop from 2016 when 48% of voters had family incomes of less than $50,000.
RELATED VIDEO
We have previously debunked various false claims by Trump and his allies that the election was rigged or stolen by the Democrats.
Federal officials in Trump’s administration said the November election was secure, and judges nationwide, including GOP appointees, rejected dozens of lawsuits alleging wrongdoing. Evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election was statistically rare among the more than 160 million votes cast.
Our ruling
The Gateway Pundit, citing a study by the Poor People’s Campaign, said Democrats "manufactured votes from low income voters to steal the battleground states."
There’s nothing in the study to support that. The study was about the impact of a voter outreach effort focused on low-income people.
Poor people are allowed to vote, and voter outreach is not voter fraud.
We rate this statement Pants on Fire.
Read About Our Process
The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter
Our Sources
Gateway Pundit, Democrats Reveal BIG CLUE in the BIG STEAL: Operatives Manufactured Votes from Low Income Voters to Steal the Battleground States — Start the Canvassing! Oct. 17, 2021
Poor People’s Campaign, Waking the Sleeping Giant: Poor and Low-Income Voters in the 2020 Elections, October 2021
Pew Research Center, Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory, June 30, 2021
Arizona Mirror, Low-income voters cast nearly 44% of all Arizona votes in 2020, study finds, Oct. 18, 2021
Pew Research Center, Behind Biden’s 2020 Victory, June 30, 2021
Arizona Mirror, Low-income voters cast nearly 44% of all Arizona votes in 2020, study finds, Oct. 18, 2021
PolitiFact, Bernie Sanders said poor people don't vote, April 24, 2016
PolitiFact, Fact-checking Andrew Yang on history of universal basic income, Oct. 16, 2019
PolitiFact, Donald Trump wrong that a winner has to be announced Election Night, Oct. 28, 2020
Email interview, Shailly Gupta Barnes, policy director for the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and author of the study, Oct. 18, 2021
Browse the Truth-O-Meter
More by Amy Sherman
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Tom Cotton
stated on June 16, 2024 in an interview on CNN's State of the Union:
“The weapons that Ukraine used in the early days of this war to fend off the Russian invasion are the weapons that Donald Trump sent, that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had refused to send.”
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Pennsylvania Values PAC
stated on June 21, 2024 in an ad:
Former President Donald Trump is “against mail in voting.”
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Threads posts
stated on June 8, 2024 in a Threads post:
“Trump can’t be on the Texas ballot because of our state constitution.”
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Donald Trump
stated on May 31, 2024 in remarks to reporters:
“Congo, Africa, just released a lot of people, a lot of people from their prisons and jails and brought them into the United States of America.”
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Donald Trump
stated on May 29, 2024 in comments to reporters:
Joe Biden “is letting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in.”
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Joe Biden
stated on June 4, 2024 in a speech:
“Due to the arrangements that I've reached with (Mexico) President Obrador, the number of migrants coming … to our shared border unlawfully in recent months has dropped dramatically.”
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Donald Trump
stated on June 2, 2024 in an interview with Fox:
Speaking about Hillary Clinton: “I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up.’ ”
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Jason Pizzo
stated on May 30, 2024 in a post on X:
“Trump can’t vote for himself in the November election.”
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Social Media
stated on May 29, 2024 in social media posts:
Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous.
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X posts
stated on May 6, 2024 in an X post:
Fired Milwaukee election leader “printed 64,000 ballots in a back room at City Hall in Milwaukee and had random employees fill them out,” giving Joe Biden the lead.
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Mike Johnson
stated on May 8, 2024 in a press conference:
“The millions (of immigrants) that have been paroled can simply go to their local welfare office or the DMV and register to vote.”
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Donald Trump
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Donald Trump
stated on May 2, 2024 in an X post:
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Donald Trump
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Joe Biden
stated on April 26, 2024 in an interview with Howard Stern:
Says he “got arrested” while protesting in favor of desegregation.
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Gateway Pundit conflates voter outreach with voter fraud in bogus claim
Threads posts
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"Project 2025 eliminates OSHA and overtime wages.”
Social Media
stated on July 11, 2024 in social media posts:
BBC News published a graphic quoting President Joe Biden saying, “Let me say this as clearly and simply as I can: [inaudible].”
D.L. Hughley
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Threads posts
stated on July 8, 2024 in a Threads post:
List shows settlements Donald Trump made to 10- to 13-year-old victims of child sex crimes.
Instagram posts
stated on July 9, 2024 in an Instagram video:
CNN producer “caught on hot mic” commenting on Maxine Waters’ “wig problem.”
Joe Biden
stated on July 9, 2024 in a speech in Washington D.C.:
In 2020, “only nine NATO allies were spending 2%” of their GDP on defense. “This year, 23 will spend at least 2%.”
Joe Biden
stated on May 16, 2024 in News release:
"The Trump administration handed out taxpayer dollars to a foreign company. Hundreds of homes and farms were bulldozed, and over $500 million in taxpayer dollars were wasted preparing for Foxconn."
Michael McCaul
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“(Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro) Mayorkas said, ‘Hey you don’t have to detain aggravated felons,’ those are rapists, child predators, you know, murderers.”
X posts
stated on July 7, 2024 in a post:
LGBTQ+ leaders sign World Economic Forum treaty to “Accept Pedophiles as 'Legally Protected Minority’”
Facebook posts
stated on July 4, 2024 in a Facebook post:
Official Navy photographs show an unidentified flying object in the Arctic Ocean in 1971.
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