Thread by @PalmerReport

The Des Moines Register made the right decision to quash its final Iowa poll once it realized Buttigieg had been left out.

Legions of Bernie fans claiming tonight that this is somehow a conspiracy against Bernie.

Why do Bernie fans insist EVERYTHING is a conspiracy against him?

Bernie fans are arguing that the newspaper left Buttigieg off, just so it could get caught, just so it could kill its own poll, and hide that Bernie is in the lead.

If the newspaper wanted to cheat, wouldn't it have just put out fake poll numbers showing Bernie not in the lead?

And no, they shouldn't have just released the Iowa poll in the name of "transparency." They forgot to include Buttigieg as a choice when he's been polling in double digits in the state. That makes the results gibberish. You don't release data you KNOW is fake.

People who favor Buttigieg saw this poll, assumed he must have dropped yesterday or something, and picked their second choice instead. This poll would only be useful as a "here's how Iowa would have gone if Pete had dropped out" hypothetical. Otherwise false polling.

Even if this was a conspiracy against Buttigieg, how was that supposed to work? They publish the poll results without him listed in the results, or they list him at 0%, hope no one catches on? No polling employee is that dumb. This was a negligent screw-up, not some conspiracy.

But I'm not seeing any Buttigieg fans claiming conspiracy.

It's only the Bernie fans claiming it's somehow a conspiracy against Bernie.

Search Twitter for "Iowa poll" and look at the tinfoil hat lunacy being posted by tons of Bernie fans. Their whole world is a conspiracy.

Of course these are the same people who insist that even though Bernie lost to Hillary by FOUR MILLION VOTES, he only lost due to some conspiracy or other.

Then again, most Bernie fans refuse to believe he lost by four million votes. They think the voting totals are fake too.