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Truth Test: New player in Love-Owens race playing with the facts

Posted at 9:58 PM, Oct 26, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-27 19:01:33-04

SALT LAKE CITY -- There's a new player in the ad wars for Utah's Fourth Congressional District.

The House Majority PAC is airing commercials in support of Democrat Doug Owens as he tries to unseat Congresswoman Mia Love.

Our previous truth tests have already dealt with two of the issues brought up in this ad: travel and the use of Congressional mailers.

This ad brings up one new fact claim and another issue of using images that imply things that aren't true.

The new claim: "She even voted against an historic bi-partisan education bill because with her busy social schedule, she didn't have time to read it."

It's a fact that Love voted against the Every Student Succeeds act, which was supported by 73 percent of Republicans in Congress along with over 90 percent of Democrats. The Act superseded No Child Left Behind, allowing schools and teachers greater flexibility.

The ad plays with the truth by blaming Love's vote on her "busy social schedule." Love told the Utah State House of Representatives that she had three days to read the 2,000 page document, and that's not enough.

We say the ad is fudging the truth when it diverts attention from a serious issue to make a personal attack.

The biggest element of untruth in the advertisement is not stated, but rather shown.

The advertisement uses an Instagram account that was clearly created by the PAC. (The fake account replacing an earlier mistake using real accounts of people with no connection to Love.)

Instagram is then used as the ad's theme, putting photographs on-screen supposedly showing Love living the high life.

While the narrator talks about trips using taxpayer money, the photographs show pictures of tropical beaches, suggesting to the viewer that Love used tax money for vacations.

The travel allegations involve flights between D.C. and Salt Lake City, though, so the "Instagram" images in the ad are fiction.