February 3, 2020

Trump Campaign Baselessly Suggests Iowa Caucuses Are “Rigged”

Yuri Gripas/CNP/Zuma

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With Iowa caucus results stalled as the state’s Democratic party performs “quality control” and addresses “inconsistencies,” Republicans are already alleging that the election is rigged. There is, of course, no evidence of that.

Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, took to Twitter Monday night to speculate that “quality control” meant “rigged,” echoing Trump’s repeated claims that the Democratic National Committee was rigging the election against Sen. Bernie Sanders. The president’s sons made similarly baseless claims:

Bogus allegations of election fraud have become a Republican mainstay in recent years, as the party seeks to restrict voting rights and suppress turnout. 

For its part, Sanders’ campaign said earlier Monday that the election is “not currently rigged.”

Mandy McClure, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, has called the delay a “reporting issue,” according to the New York Times. Many precinct chairs have had difficulties using a new app to report caucus results. Those problems are serious, but they don’t constitute a rigged election.

Listen to Mother Jones’ Ari Berman and Tim Murphy discuss the fallout from the Iowa voting debacle on this week’s special early edition of the Mother Jones Podcast:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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