Yes. A national poll in March 2023 found 19% of respondents said they have a family member who was killed by a gun, including suicide.
Author Archives: Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch
Tom Kertscher joined as a Wisconsin Watch fact checker in January 2023 and contributes to our collaboration with the The Gigafact Project to fight misinformation online. Kertscher is a former longtime newspaper reporter, including at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, who has worked as a self-employed journalist since 2019. His gigs include contributing writer for PolitiFact and sports freelancer for The Associated Press.
Posted inFact briefs
Has college tuition increased four times the rate of inflation since Ronald Reagan was president?
No. Nationwide, college tuition has increased about three times as much as inflation since Ronald Reagan’s presidency ended in January 1989.
Posted inFact briefs
Has Wisconsin been decided by less than 1 percentage point in four of the last six presidential elections?
Yes. The candidate who carried Wisconsin in the 2020, 2016, 2004 and 2000 presidential elections won the state by less than 1 percentage point.
Posted inFact briefs
Does Wisconsin’s constitution ‘clearly’ say the Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice administers the Supreme Court?
No. The chief justice is the administrative head, but administering the court is “pursuant to procedures adopted by the Supreme Court.” There’s disagreement over what the constitution means.
Posted inFact briefs
Did Florida decide that its middle school curriculum will include that some enslaved people benefited from slavery?
Yes. Instruction includes “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Posted inFact briefs
Did a Marquette University poll find that 50% of US Republicans don’t believe that Donald Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago?
Yes. Among Republican respondents, 50% said they didn’t believe Trump had top secret and other classified documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago last year.
Posted inFact briefs
Do Republican presidential candidates participating in the Milwaukee debate have to pledge not to participate in debates the GOP doesn’t sanction?
Yes. To participate, candidates must meet several requirements, including having 40,000 unique donors to their campaign and earning a minimum amount of support in polls.
Posted inFact briefs
Has Milwaukee Public Schools enrollment dropped 10% in three years?
Yes. Milwaukee Public Schools enrollment was 67,500 in the 2022-23 school year — 9.6% less than the 2019-20 enrollment of 74,683.
Posted inFact briefs
Are Republican presidential candidates offering financial incentives to campaign donors in order to qualify for the Milwaukee debate?
Yes. At least three Republican presidential candidates have offered financial incentives to supporters in an attempt to qualify for the Milwaukee debate.
Posted inFact briefs
Did the US debt increase by $7.8 trillion during Donald Trump’s presidency?
Yes. The national debt on Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated president, was $19,944,429,217,107.
Posted inFact briefs
Did a national poll find that 70% of adults favor laws requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams matching their biological sex as assigned at birth?
Yes. A Marquette Law School Poll found that 71% of U.S. adults favor requiring that transgender athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender with which they identify, and 28% were opposed.
Posted inFact briefs
Did a national poll find that 86% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported negative mental health effects from anti-trans legislation?
Yes. A national poll asked lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning people age 13 to 24, “How have recent debates about state laws restricting the rights of LGBTQ young people impacted your mental health?”