PolitiFact’s home page begs for donations with the sales pitch: “Stand up for the facts! Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.” But PolitiFact’s liberal agenda can be easily identified by studying its partisan pattern of “fact checking.”
A NewsBusters analysis of all the “Truth-O-Meter” ratings of elected or appointed officials from January 1 through August 31, 2025 found the Democrats drew 37 “fact checks” and 14 were “Mostly False” or worse (37.8 percent).
By contrast, the Republicans were rated “Mostly False” or worse in 63 of 84 fact checks (75.0 percent). This is not an encouraging sign of fairness or balance headed into the fall election season.
There’s a disparity in the number of fact checks of 84 to 37, or more than two to one, and the disparity in “False” warnings is 63 to 14.
This is the usual PolitiFact pattern: In 2025, Republicans were deemed "Mostly False" or worse in 124 of 146 fact checks (84.9 percent). The Democrats were tagged as "Mostly False" or worse in just 17 of 49 checks (34.6 percent).
PolitiFact raised eyebrows in the first three months of 2026, findings the Democrats “Mostly False” or worse on zero occasions. Now, they’ve recalibrated. In July and August, the Democrats were rated on the False on five of eight fact checks (62.5 percent). Still, the Republicans in the last two months have been on the False side on 19 of 22 fact checks (86.4 percent).
President Trump has drawn seven “Pants On Fire” ratings this year, which adds up to 229 “Pants On Fire” flags, 19.5 percent of his 1,174 fact checks. He’s been on the False side on 916 of those 1,174 (78 percent). Overall in 2026, Trump has been found Mostly False of worse on 33 of 39 occasions (84 percent). He had one “Mostly True” in April, a true shocker, his first time on True side since October 2024. In that year, he was re-elected despite his False-True ratio being 68 to 1.
