I believe he was an active US senator at the time (2015-2016). I forget if he was majority leader or minority whip, it if that was during a different part of his tenure.
I do agree that it seemed somewhat isolated in official statements. I did hear quite a few individuals in my personal life believe/state that since the system was compromised that must mean the votes/count must have been changed.
I can see how the fraud claim is popular - if you're losing the popular vote consistently due to (simplistically) higher urban population, you might look for something to use as an excuse. This makes an easy excuse since in your constituent areas (rural) you would have the observation bias that almost everyone you know voted for your candidate and still lost. Sloppy voting system maintenance supplies plenty of anecdotal things to point to, like dead people kn the voting role.
I do agree that it seemed somewhat isolated in official statements. I did hear quite a few individuals in my personal life believe/state that since the system was compromised that must mean the votes/count must have been changed.
I can see how the fraud claim is popular - if you're losing the popular vote consistently due to (simplistically) higher urban population, you might look for something to use as an excuse. This makes an easy excuse since in your constituent areas (rural) you would have the observation bias that almost everyone you know voted for your candidate and still lost. Sloppy voting system maintenance supplies plenty of anecdotal things to point to, like dead people kn the voting role.