The overall increase in fentanyl seized at the southwest border under President Joe Biden is nowhere near as high as a Republican ad misleadingly claims. U.S. border officials seized 13,021 pounds of the drug in Biden’s first full 15 months in office, which is 70% more than the 7,677 pounds seized in Donald Trump’s last full 15 months as president.
Democrat Cheri Beasley’s record in North Carolina Supreme Court cases involving violent crime is the subject of competing TV ads in the state’s U.S. Senate race. But neither ad gives viewers all of the necessary context for the claims portraying Beasley, a former state chief justice, as either weak or tough on crime.
A late attack ad from a super PAC supporting one of Kathy Barnette’s opponents in the Pennsylvania Senate Republican primary makes several misleading claims about Barnette, who has surged in the polls.
It’s well known that JD Vance — Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate in the Ohio Republican primary for U.S. Senate — was no fan of the former president just a few years back. Vance’s past quotes practically write his opponents’ attack ads for them. But the truth isn’t enough in political campaigns.
As part of his plan to downsize the federal government, Republican Sen. Rick Scott says he wants all federal legislation to “sunset” in five years, and “[i]f a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Well, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were all created by legislation. And now Democrats are saying Republicans want to end those programs.
In the crowded Republican primary field for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, candidate Mike Gibbons charges in a TV ad that his cohorts have taken his words on taxes “out of context” — but his ad leaves out context and stretches the facts on their positions, too.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that he couldn’t even “imagine a circumstance” where “parents complaining” at a school board meeting would be “labeled as domestic terrorism.” Yet, several Republicans have continued to falsely claim Garland called such parents “terrorists.”
Republican Mark Walker voted against former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, and he was no longer a congressman when the House voted to impeach Trump a second time in 2021. Yet, a misleading TV ad claims Walker, who is running for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, “abandoned” Trump on a vote “to block a Democrat bill” impeaching Trump.
A TV ad from a super PAC backing Dr. Mehmet Oz for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania stretches the facts in an attempt to tie Oz’s chief rival, Dave McCormick, to Black Lives Matter.
When it comes to political images, seeing shouldn’t always be believing. Case in point is an image recently tweeted by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that is misleadingly presented to make his polling advantage over Republican rival David Perdue appear larger than it actually is in a hypothetical general election matchup with Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.