Sanders says he's losing because 'poor people don't vote' — but they're just not voting for him

Bernie Sanders said on NBC's Meet the Press that the reason he has overwhelmingly lost primaries in states with high levels of income inequality is that "poor people don’t vote."

"I mean, that's just a fact, he added. "That's a sad reality of American society."

He continued: "If we can significantly increase voter turnout so that low-income people and working people and young people participated in the political process, if we got a voter turnout of 75 percent, this country would be radically transformed." The voter turnout in the last open presidential election, 2008, was at 61.6 percent, a 40-year high.

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But exit polls from the Democratic primaries suggest Sanders' thesis isn't quite right: Voter participation rates aside, poor people tend to prefer Sanders' competitor, Hillary Clinton. Households with annual income below $50,000 have gone for Clinton 55 to 44 percent. And Sanders doesn't perform much better among the middle class, either, with Clinton leading there by 9 percent.

To be fair, Clinton's advantage is significantly greater among households making $100,000 or more; there her margin of victory is 21 percent.