President Trump has said repeatedly that Russian interference didn’t matter in the 2016 presidential campaign, and he has suggested — wrongly — that the intelligence and law enforcement communities have said the same. His overriding fear seems to be that Russian interference and the “fake news” it promoted would undermine the legitimacy of his election win.
Trump won’t like this new study one bit.
The study from researchers at Ohio State University finds that fake news probably played a significant role in depressing Hillary Clinton’s support on Election Day. The study, which has not been peer-reviewed but which may be the first look at how fake news affected voter choices, suggests that about 4 percent of President Barack Obama’s 2012 supporters were dissuaded from voting for Clinton in 2016 by belief in fake news stories. CONT.
Aaron Blake, Washington Post