As fact-checkers, we watch a lot of ads in the lead-up to elections, and we only write about a fraction of them. Some of them are downright bizarre. As we first started doing 20 years ago — just for fun — on Election Day, we’re giving out pretend awards to some of the notable ads we came across this campaign cycle.
We’ll know soon enough who won the 2024 general elections for president, Congress and other important positions. But we don’t have to wait a second longer to find out this year’s FactCheck Award winners.
We are very serious fact-checkers, but we also like to have a bit of fun. That’s why every two years, on Election Day, we recognize a few of the many political ads we see during the campaign cycle with some not-to-be-taken-seriously awards.
It’s an Election Day tradition: our awards for off-beat political ads.
We highlight the unique and unusual campaign videos from the midterm elections.
We highlight some TV ads that made us laugh out loud and either shake our heads or scratch them.
The funniest, strangest and otherwise noteworthy ads of the campaign season.
It’s that special time of year again when campaigning is over (finally!) and the voting has begun. On Election Day we can stop being so serious about fact-checking false or deceptive claims and have some fun handing out imaginary hardware to those political ads that caught our eyes for other reasons.
Election Day has arrived; every voter has made up his or her mind (or should have, by now). So — just as we’ve done on Election Days past — we offer here some of the ads that we thought deserved special attention, not for the facts they present but for sheer style points (or lack thereof).
For those readers who’ve stuck with us through a lot of in-depth reporting on complex issues, we offer these just-for-fun awards for some of the most entertaining, most egregious, most off-the-wall or just plain grossest ads this election cycle.