Facebook Twitter Tumblr Close Skip to main content
A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Super PAC Ads Distort New York Congressional Candidate’s ‘Help Not Handcuffs’ Quote

Super PAC Ads Distort New York Congressional Candidate’s ‘Help Not Handcuffs’ Quote

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, is running ads on TV and social media that distort Democratic House candidate Josh Riley’s positions on crime. One ad misleadingly claims that the New York Democrat said he “supports help not handcuffs” for criminals, and another misleadingly implies he supports defunding the police. 

Ad from Super PAC Misleadingly Edits Utah Candidate’s Comments About Republican Base

Ad from Super PAC Misleadingly Edits Utah Candidate’s Comments About Republican Base

In TV and social media ads, Club for Growth Action misleadingly edited remarks by independent Senate candidate Evan McMullin of Utah to make it appear he said that “the Republican base is racist.” In fact, McMullin said “there is an element of the Republican base that is racist,” and that the party’s leaders won’t stand up to them for fear of losing votes.

Trump Wrong About Ads Attacking Kasich

Trump Wrong About Ads Attacking Kasich

Donald Trump falsely claims that while he has had “55,000 negative ads” run against him, John Kasich has “never had one negative ad against him.”

Court’s Decision: Keep FactCheck Busy

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today that corporations can spend as freely as they like in federal elections, a decision that could bring a flood of new ads expressly favoring or opposing candidates in the congressional midterm elections this year.
The opinion in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission throws out a 63-year-old law that attempted to restrain the influence of business and labor in elections and overturns two of the Court’s own decisions.

Corzine’s Misleading Calls on Christie

Less than a week after former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie won the right to challenge Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine as the Republican nominee in the fall gubernatorial contest, the Corzine campaign released two ads with the goal of reminding voters just how Republican Christie is. A number of …

More Upstate Insults

The campaign to fill the vacant House seat in New York’s 20th congressional district is the race that keeps on giving – giving false and misleading ads, at least. Two new spots, one from Democratic businessman Scott Murphy and another from his foe, Republican state Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, both …

Upstate Insults

New York Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, a Republican, and businessman Scott Murphy, a Democrat, are battling to fill a House seat in New York’s 20th congressional district that was vacated when its occupant was appointed to the Senate. The special election is scheduled for March 31. Recent ads have …

Social Security and Spanish Ads

We posted two new pieces on the main site today. The first looks at a common theme among Democratic congressional ads: the accusation that Republicans want to gamble away Social Security in risky private investments. We count 58 ads with such charges that have aired since Oct. 1. Read all about how they’re trying to mislead voters in our full story:
More Social Security Bunk

Our second article examines four Spanish-language ads from the presidential campaigns,

Distorting Our Findings, Part II

On Sept. 10, we objected when the McCain-Palin campaign released an ad implying that we’d criticized Obama for “completely false” and “misleading” claims about Sarah Palin. We did use those words, but we used them to criticize anonymous Internet rumormongers, not Obama.
Now that same claim from the McCain-Palin camp is being recycled into fundraising letters. Here’s the passage from an e-mail from McCain-Palin Victory 2008, a joint project of the Republican National Committee and the Michigan,