The PolitiFact (PF) Truth Index by state and affiliation stayed about the same as it did for the first six months of 2011, except for the additions of PF's New Hampshire and New Jersey. PolitiFacts Virginia and Wisconsin continue to slightly favor the Republicans.
The greatest Truth Index gaps exist with Rhode Island and Oregon, both with a near 45 point, or one full notch on the Truth-o-meter, variance between the Truth Index for Democrats, as compared to that for Republicans. While I have been looking at these regions in terms of the associated newspapers’ endorsements, another way one might look at them is by the political makeup of the state. Both Rhode Island and Oregon tend to be more Democratic than Republican; Rhode Island, for example, has a far larger number of active Democrats than it does Republicans. Whether this has anything to do with why Democrats are ruled on as truthier, I don’t know, but could reflect the chances of getting a PolitiFact writer (if they were hired locally) who would reflect that political make up. It could also be because they don’t have a lot of rulings compared to their PolitiFact partners, which may skew the results.
The other thing I have observed is that we have “some” relationship between the population and the number of rulings done. I say “some” because it’s not very proportional when you take the number of rulings and say, for example, divide them by the number of congressmen for the state or the latest population numbers. But the way it’s been going, PolitiFacts Florida and Texas are the two highest producers of PolitiFact rulings, followed by Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia. Virginia, Rhode Island and Oregon seem to be the PolitiFact Juniors. It appears to correlate roughly with population as well as any significant political events in the state: for example, Wisconsin’s labor protests in February drove a roughly 50 percent jump in the number of rulings, as politicos and pundits got subjected to the Truth Index as events developed, and then fell off in the subsequent months. Even so, Wisconsin has fewer representatives and a much lower population by far than Georgia, but is well ahead of it in number of rulings, even adjusting for the February output. So the relationship is a “loose” one.
PolitiFact New Hampshire is a question mark, as I have posted previously. Occasionally, other PolitiFact locations have written rulings for PolitiFact New Hampshire, such as W. Gardner Selby of PF Texas, who wrote a ruling regarding Rick Perry for PF New Hampshire under the PolitiFact Texas banner. These are few and far between, however. It just makes things a bit confusing if you’re trying to categorize the rulings by state. So far, PF New Hampshire has done very few rulings on local politicians (or doing the New Hampshire Democratic Party) and has mainly concentrated on the Republican presidential contenders, generating rulings as the many debates have taken place. Perhaps, as I have commented before, with the divergent status given it, New Hampshire is a training ground for PF writers and editors. We’ll see.
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