PolitiFact is reporting that Republican attacks against Democratic U.S. Senate candidates in Florida and Michigan are misleading voters.
In Florida, Republican incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody is challenging Democratic primary winner Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, by linking her to "extreme policies." Moody said Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, supports positions such as defunding the police, not funding the military, open borders and noncitizen voting. PolitiFact said Nixon joined the DSA in June and told WLRN she agrees with many but not all of the group's policies, stating she does not "fully align with anybody’s full platform 100%, not even the Democratic Party." Her campaign said she also belongs to the Working Families Party and Service Employees International Union, and supports public safety, criminal justice reform, securing the U.S. border and clear pathways to citizenship. Moody's campaign maintained that voluntary DSA membership implies support for its platform and cited Nixon's vote against Florida's SAVE Act as evidence of supporting noncitizen voting.
Separately, PolitiFact is reporting on claims by the Republican National Committee that Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed supports "communist-style government seizure of private companies." The RNC shared a 16-second clip of El-Sayed discussing "public ownership" and "public control." PolitiFact said a University of Michigan professor emeritus, Ronald Suny, defined communism as complete government ownership and directed economic planning. PolitiFact found that the full 50-minute podcast interview from which the clip was taken shows El-Sayed was specifically discussing federal oversight of artificial intelligence companies and data center development, not general communism.