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Politifact gets a grade "bigly" wrong

I'd say roughly 9 out of 10 times, I think Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checker Politifact gets their grades right. When they get something wrong, though, they should be called out like everyone else. That's the case with a very recent article of theirs, written by Amy Sherman and titled "Story says poll shows Trump tied to Obama at same point in presidency."

The fact-check is actually in response to an article posted at the far-right website, The Gateway Pundit, where the headline reads, "Trump approval rating better than Obama and Reagan at same point in their presidencies." The article then goes on to cherry-pick two conservative-leaning pollsters, Rasmussen and Fox News. To my surprise, Politifact then went on to give this claim a "Mostly True" grade.

If one were to check the polling breakdown courtesy of RealClearPolitics, they'd quickly see Politifact was off with this grade.

At this point in Barack Obama's first term as president, June of 2010, thirteen polls were released with regard to his approval rating. Those polls read as follows:

47-45
48-46
49-48
46-50
44-45
45-48
48-43
47-43
50-48
50-45
50-49
45-45
52-45

Average: 47.8-46.2 (Net +1.6)

To this point in the month, thirteen polls have been released with regard to Donald Trump's approval rating. Those polls read as follows:

48-50
45-46
45-51
43-54
39-54
42-54
45-51
42-54
40-57
44-53
40-51
36-55
41-55

Average: 42.3-52.7 (Net -10.4)

So, overall, at the same point in the past two presidents' tenures, there's actually a 12-point gap between the two, in favor of Barack Obama. So not only is Politifact off with their "Mostly True" grade, they're off quite "bigly," as Donald Trump might say. While the grade shouldn't reach the point of "Pants on Fire," it should, at the very least be scored as "Mostly False," if not "False." Hopefully they soon correct their error.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/18/gateway-pundit/headline-says-trump-tied-obama-same-point-presiden/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html#polls


https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html

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