Maxine Waters didn’t tell people to unfollow her opponent because he is a “Hispanic Republican”

Omar Navarro was charged with misusing campaign funds after unsuccessfully running against U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., in four consecutive congressional elections. But Waters did not make an online post to discourage people from following Navarro, as social media users claimed. 

"DO NOT FOLLOW @REALOMARNAVARRO! He’s a young Hispanic Republican spreading lies on Instagram," a screenshot on Instagram purporting to be from Waters’ official social media account says. "He claims Democrats have failed Hispanic America. He is also pro-life and pro-Trump. Why is he not suspended? Do NOT follow him!"

(Screengrab from Instagram)

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Bernie Sanders

stated on March 22, 2016 in a campaign speech

"Today, the United States has, sadly, one of the lowest voter turnouts of any major country on earth."

The post did not include a time stamp and is not on Water’s official X and Instagram accounts. We also found no media reports about it. And Waters did not delete any X posts in the last 30 days according to Social Blade, a social media analytics platform. 

J. Ellis McGinnis, Waters’ chief of staff, told PolitiFact in an email that the post was fake. 

We rate the claim that Maxine Waters told her followers on X not to follow Omar Navarro because he is a Hispanic Republican Pants on Fire! 

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.