Bernie Sanders' boasts of winning when voter turnout is high are 'mostly false,' says PolitiFact

Claims that large voter turnouts favor Sanders are mostly wrong.

(Image credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

published 19 April 2016

Bernie Sanders has urged his supporters to come out in droves, claiming that "we win when voter turnout is high, we lose when it is low." But according to PolitiFact, that isn't exactly the case — the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-checkers have called Sanders' boast "mostly false" based on the evidence:

Sanders did notch a few notable victories in high-turnout primaries, but it would be cherry-picking to focus only on primaries. Sanders has mostly won caucuses, which have produced the lowest turnout rates of 2016 across the board. And while Sanders did win the handful of states where Democratic turnout increased over 2008, these increases were tiny, casting doubt on how significant an accomplishment this is.[Sanders'] statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False. [PolitiFact]

In fact, while Sanders won the three states with the largest relative turnout — Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and his home state of Vermont — he also won the states with the 10 lowest turnout rates, all of which were caucuses, as PolitiFact notes.

Read the entire breakdown of the evidence over at PolitiFact.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.