Trump Supporters in Iowa Denial Have Found Their Hashtag: #MicrosoftRubioFraud

Donald Trump is notorious for his disdain of losers and second-place finishers, which is pretty awkward because he lost the Iowa caucuses and came in at No. 2.

Trump’s army of supporters are similarly struggling with loserdom, and they’re finding solace in a conspiracy theory hashtag on Twitter that popped up late Monday night: #MicrosoftRubioFraud.

https://twitter.com/LordPatriot/status/694418192597254144

Here’s the story behind #MicrosoftRubioFraud: Members of the 8chan message board (one of the original Gamergate hotbeds) began theorizing earlier on Monday that Microsoft software used for counting votes was going to screw Trump somehow. And when Trump finished behind Ted Cruz and ahead of Marco Rubio, it stunned many Trump supporters online, who turned this Breitbart article connecting Microsoft and Rubio into an anti-Rubio rallying cry. Of course, these same people were likely egged on by the decision of a number of political journalists to anoint third-place Rubio the winner of Monday’s contest.

Like most conspiracy theories, there are a couple needles of truth in this haystack of misconceptions. Microsoft did offer to help out with the vote tallying efforts, in an attempt to show off its cloud computing muscle. Additionally, Microsoft is the second-largest corporate donor to Marco Rubio.

Here are some beautifully illustrative tweets of the #MicrosoftRubioFraud genre:

https://twitter.com/Bonfiredesigns/status/694415615008862208

https://twitter.com/Rockprincess818/status/694399182249918464

https://twitter.com/genophilia/status/694365183276224513

In his concession speech, Trump said he was “honored” to come in second place.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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