Ocasio-Cortez: ‘Rampant voter suppression’ contributed to Sanders’s loss in Michigan

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Thursday attributed some of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) struggles in Michigan’s Democratic primary election on Tuesday to “rampant voter suppression.” 

“Well, I think one thing that … that isn’t being talked about is the rampant voter suppression in this country,” Ocasio-Cortez told Fox News’s Bret Baier, citing long lines that young voters in college towns such as Ann Arbor had to face. 

“Right there, in Ann Arbor, where we had that rally, those kids were waiting three hours in line to vote in Michigan,” she explained.

Sanders, who scored an upset win in Michigan against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, was routed in the Wolverine State this time around by former Vice President Joe Biden. The former vice president won by 17 percentage points over the Vermont senator.

The only state that Sanders won Tuesday was North Dakota, which is tied for the least amount of delegates (14) in the continental U.S.

Ocasio-Cortez admitted that there is more that the Sanders campaign can do to get young voters to vote.

“You know, obviously there’s also more that we need to do in terms of turning out youth voters,” she said.

“We need to make sure that we’re inspiring young people to turn out, but when you do turn out, you should not be waiting three, four, seven hours in order to vote. And that causes people to leave,” she added.