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Does a viral post prove that 84% of electronic devices spotted at the joint Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rally in Colorado can be definitively linked to Kamala Harris campaign events and protests for other causes? No, that's not true: The post didn't offer a replicable analysis of the data. Two organizations mentioned in it among the supposed sources said to have been used to link information to specific individuals told Lead Stories that they do not release their data in a form that could potentially identify people.

The claim originated from a post (archived here) published on X on March 23, 2025. It opened:

GPS--Here we go again, there were 20,189 devices. Still a large crowd but not even close to the 30,000 quoted in Denver newspapers nor the 34,000 quoted by Bernie Sanders and AOC.

84% of the devices present had attended 9 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests, 31% had attended over 20.

This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot taken on Mon Mar 24 20:21:45  2025 UTC)

The entry referred to the rally with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that attracted thousands of attendees in Colorado on March 21, 2025 (archived here).

The post, however, failed to provide any publicly available datasets allowing readers to test the claims by replicating the purported analysis of mobile phone location data, user data or the "6,000" databases in which the post claims user data was found.

On March 25, 2025, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (archived here), which was mentioned in the post on X, told Lead Stories via email that the Census Bureau conducts the Current Population Survey on its behalf and that the survey "offers a broad range of data on the labor market across several demographic characteristics", but the information can't be traced back to a specific person:

We present published information only in the form of statistical summaries, and we never release any information that could identify individuals. The Census Bureau and BLS have established strict procedures to ensure data confidentiality. More information is available on the CPS confidentiality webpage.

One more organization named in the post was Pew Research Center (archived here). On March 25, 2025, its spokesperson told Lead Stories via email:

We do not publish data that makes individuals identifiable in any way. Our Terms of Use (https://www.pewresearch.org/about/terms-and-conditions/) outline how the Center's publications may be used.

Tony Seruga is known for making unsubstantiated claims based on cellphone tracking data he claims to have access to (archived here). A LinkedIn profile matching this name and the self-description section on X (archived here) listed two degrees: one in law, and one in biology. It said nothing about any professional training related to data or computer science.

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Other Lead Stories fact checks about current events are here.