Georgia’s senior U.S. senator, Republican Saxby Chambliss, is retiring, and Jack Kingston and David Perdue are battling to be the GOP’s nominee to succeed him.
PolitiFact Georgia, the nonpartisan fact-checking arm of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has been keeping tabs as the Kingston-Perdue race enters its final lap.
Kingston, a 22-year House member, and Perdue, a wealthy businessman, are flooding the airwaves with attack ads as the July 22 primary runoff nears.
The Atlanta Press Club is hosting a debate Sunday night between Kingston and Perdue. The debate airs at 7 p.m. on Georgia Public Broadcasting. Expect to see some of the allegations already fact-checked by PolitiFact resurface in the faceoff.
(Follow us @PolitFactGA for updates and links)
The runoff winner will go head to head in November with Democrat Michelle Nunn.
PolitiFact Georgia will continue to fact-check campaign claims by Perdue and Kingston during the coming week..
Abbreviated versions of some of our fact checks in this race are below.
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David Perdue in an ad now airing on television and radio: Jack Kingston voted to raise his pay seven times.
Perdue and his backers have attacked Kingston in the GOP race for the U.S. Senate for having voted seven times to raise his own pay.
The problem with the claim is congressional raises have been automatic since the l980s unless there’s a specific vote to refuse or reduce them.
Perdue’s attacks are based on procedural votes that Kingston took that effectively blocked others’ attempts to force an up-or-down vote on accepting the annual raises.
And Kingston did support some efforts to delay or deny the raises.
In 11 years, Congress voted to delay or deny the pay raises with 13 votes. The Congressional Record shows Kingston voted with the majority on eight of those 13 votes.
We rated Perdue’s statement as Mostly False.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2014/jul/11/david-perdue/perdue-pay-raise-claim-falls-short/
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David Perdue In a Twitter post June 23: Jack Kingston “requested more earmarks than any other GA Congressman and all GA GOP members combined.”
Earmarks, money that lawmakers designate to go to projects or programs in their districts, are an issue in the runoff battle.
We reviewed two databases that backed up Perdue’s claim. One showed Kingston made 145 requests for earmarks in three years, pulling in about $211 million. Together, Georgia’s GOP delegation had about $327 million in earmarks in that same period.
Kingston, who represents five of Georgia’s eight military installations, noted that much of the funding was for defense or military spending, such as an IED simulator at Fort Stewart and hospital renovations at installations statewide.
We rated Perdue’s statement Mostly True.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2014/jul/01/david-perdue/does-kingston-bring-home-bacon/)
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Jack Kingston in a radio and television ad June 18: David Perdue’s company took $3 million from the federal stimulus program created by President Barack Obama.
In a provocative ad, Kingston tries to tie his Republican runoff opponent, Perdue, to the president. An Obama impersonator tells Kingston in a voice mail that Perdue is “my kind of guy,” someone who, among other things, has a company that took $3 million in federal stimulus money.
The ad refers to $3.4 million in stimulus money that went to Alliant Energy Co., a Midwest energy holding company with $3.2 billion in reported operating revenue for 2013. Perdue serves on the company’s board of directors but has no direct management responsibility and no day-to-day role at the company. We saw the claim by Kingston as misleading.
We rated the ad Mostly False.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2014/jun/30/jack-kingston/kingston-claim-more-rhetoric-reality/
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David Perdue in a video Feb. 5: Dollar General “added 2,500 stores and 20,000 jobs” during his four years as CEO.
In his first campaign television ad, Perdue highlighted his record as CEO of Dollar General from June 2003 to July 2007. The company’s annual reports during that time show ambitious plans to open 600 to 800 stores a year. In most years during Perdue’s tenure, Dollar General exceeded those projections.
Records show that, on March 4, 2007, the company had 8,260 stores and about 69,500 full-time and part-time employees. That’s a four-year increase of nearly 2,100 stores and 16,000 workers.
Campaign spokesman Derrick Dickey said those reports are not a reliable measuring stick to examine the accuracy of Perdue’s statement for a few reasons, including the time covered by those reports didn’t match exactly Perdue’s time as CEO. “The numbers we cited are based on our analysis of the added stores and jobs created that can be directly attributed to decisions made by David while he served as CEO, ” Dickey said via email.
Perdue’s overall point about opening many new stores and creating a lot of jobs is on target.
We rated his claim Mostly True.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2014/feb/14/david-perdue/perdue-takes-aim-senate-seat-highlighting-his-
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“The David Perdue Files” website on April 21: David Perdue supports Common Core.
During the campaign, Perdue found himself the subject of a website attack.
The site, “The David Perdue Files,” accused the political newcomer of being a RINO —- Republican in Name Only —- with “liberal positions and establishment ties.”
“David Perdue supports Common Core, ” it said.
Perdue has said in several interviews that he believes in the initial intent of Common Core as a means for states setting their own educational goals by what was proposed by the National Governors Association. Perdue, though, also has made it very clear he has soured on the plan.
We rated the website attack on Perdue as Mostly False.
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2014/feb/14/david-perdue/perdue-takes-aim-senate-seat-highlighting-his-doll/)
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