Kentucky voters have a stark choice between Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell and Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes. Their fierce battle has included falsehoods on jobs, coal and health care.
FactChecking the Kentucky Senate Race
Locations: Kentucky
Playing Politics with Violence Against Women
An ad from Alison Lundergan Grimes knocks Sen. Mitch McConnell for voting “two times against the Violence Against Women Act” — evidence, Grimes concludes, that McConnell has forgotten that “over half the voters in Kentucky are women.”
Parsing McConnell’s Job Description
A laid off coal miner in an Alison Lundergan Grimes TV ad poses a question to Sen. Mitch McConnell: “Why’d you say it’s not your job to bring jobs to Kentucky?” McConnell doesn’t dispute saying it, but he claims that he misunderstood a reporter’s question and his words have been misinterpreted.
Medicare Ghost Stories
Ghost stories are fanciful, frightening tales told to children. But political claims about Medicare cuts are stories used to scare senior citizens. Such distortions are currently on display in the high-profile Kentucky Senate race.
McConnell Misquotes EPA Administrator
Senate Minority Leader Mitchell McConnell misquoted EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy when he claimed in a floor speech that she conceded the administration’s new climate change plan is “a war on coal.”
Correcting Kentucky Claim on Coal
An outside group attacking Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes is off base with its claim that she has been “silent” as “Obama attacked coal.”
McConnell’s Bloated Tax Boast
A new ad from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell grossly oversells the percentage of Kentuckians that McConnell “saved” from income tax hikes last year.
Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund
A super PAC formed in 2013 with the goal of pushing the Republican Party further right.
‘Lost Jobs’ from Obamacare
Republicans have distorted a Congressional Budget Office report, wrongly claiming that it said the Affordable Care Act would cause more than 2 million people to “lose their jobs.”
Senate Conservatives Fund/Senate Conservatives Action
Conservative PACs aiming to elect “true” conservatives to Congress and defeat incumbent Republicans that fall short of that standard.