Checking the facts in the Arizona Senate race

By Bill Adair
Published on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 12:21 p.m.

Related rulings:

John McCain "voted against the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, wrongly claiming they helped only the rich."

J.D. Hayworth, Friday, June 4th, 2010.

Ruling: Mostly True | Details

After J.D. Hayworth "was voted out of Congress, he became a registered lobbyist" who was "paid thousands by a Florida corporation to lobby the very committee he used to serve on."

John McCain, Monday, June 7th, 2010.

Ruling: True | Details

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Sen. John McCain says in this ad that his primary opponent worked as a lobbyist

Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party's most recent nominee for president, is facing a serious re-election challenge from within his own party.

McCain is being challenged by former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth. For our Message Machine partnership with NPR, we checked claims from two ads, one from each:

McCain, invoking a line we've heard in many other races, slammed Hayworth for being a lobbyist. We checked the facts and found McCain was right.

Hayworth, meanwhile, is portraying McCain as out-of-step with conservative Arizona values. He says McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts because he "wrongly" calimed they helped only the rich. We rated that one Mostly True.