Truth Index: 2012 First Half

The second quarter of 2012 saw a decrease in Republican rulings by PolitiFact with the wind-down of the Republican primaries and Mitt Romney emerging as the presidential candidate. There was a slight decrease in the number of rulings, with 500 rulings published in total compared to 516 in the first quarter of 2012. The Republicans dominated in the first quarter with over 60% but for the second quarter dipped to just over 54% while rulings on the Democrats went from 34.3% to almost 39%.

A two-week segmented line graph shows that the trend disparity between the Republicans and Democrats also narrowed following the primaries. While the Republicans were for the most part less “truthful” than the Democrats, they did not vacillate as much as the Democrats did, and it was more the case that more statements of Democrats were found less truthful while the Republicans stayed about the same. While it was speculated after the first quarter that PolitiFact was doing “catch up” at month-end to even out party ruling outcomes, there does not appear to be any evidence of it now.

Click to enlarge:  the gap grew closer in the second quarter as the Republican primaries drew to a close.

One of the reasons there are more Republican statements being fact-checked is that they are simply more newsworthy Republicans in the states PolitiFact represents: Republicans dominate governorships and legislatures in Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, whose PolitiFact branches as a group publish much more in the way of rulings than New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.

Here are the overall charts comparing the Republicans and Democrats for the first half of 2012 in the PolitiFact app format.  It supports the comments above that while the Republican Truth Index stayed about the same at negative 26.1 (for the first quarter they were at a negative 23.8) the Democrat Truth Index fell off from a positive 5.4 to a negative 2.4.   I will be delving into (at least one of) the reasons for that drop soon.

Click to enlarge: Almost equal in percent of Half Trues and Falses, tho the Repubs have more than double Pants on Fire.