Election

Did an Emerson poll show Spencer Pratt leading Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayor's race on May 28, 2026? No, that's not true: Emerson College Polling told Lead Stories "no such poll exists" and the social media post making the claim used "made up numbers." The organization last conducted a poll for the mayor's race in mid-May, and Bass…

Did the British Broadcasting Corp. publish a video report that French President Emmanuel Macron is deploying 800 French Foreign Legion soldiers to Armenia? No, that's not true: The British news channel did not report that Macron is running a personal security service for a panicked Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. There are no other reports from credible news organizations that…

Does a video show "illegal cutout windows" in Maricopa County, Arizona, ballot envelopes in order to make it easy to identify Republican ballots for election-fraud purposes? No, that's not true: The window in the outgoing enveloppes is there so the QR code can be scanned as part of ballot-quality control during primaries, former Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer told Lead…

Did music artist Kid Rock say that he would not release more music if Democrats take control of the House during the midterm elections? No, that's not true: No such statement appears on his website or social media channels. The claim appears only on social media and has not been reported by credible news sources. The claim appeared in a…

Are social media posts claiming that Pope Leo XIV and a long list of celebrities each filed a $50 million lawsuit against a news host for "vicious, calculated defamation" real? No, that's not true: None of the celebrities named in the posts made any such statement. The claims came from a spam operation managed from Vietnam that uses AI-generated Facebook…

Could a man who claimed in a viral video that he had a stack of unclaimed ballots mailed to voters who had moved use them to vote for Spencer Pratt for mayor of Los Angeles as he claimed? No, that's not true: The ballots appeared to be for a precinct in West Hollywood, which is a separate city from Los…

Did Rep. Thomas Massie lose by 10,280 votes in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District Republican primary in May 2026, while candidate Ed Gallrein received 10,854 mail-in votes? And did Massie receive 50,301 votes out of 66,874 total votes in the 2022 primary, compared with 47,539 out of 105,361 total votes in 2026? Yes, those tallies are all true: Election results from…

Did "Biden body double" AJ Barron flip and cut a deal to testify about acting on behalf of the then-sitting president? No, that's not true: The tale originated from America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD), a network of satire sites. Lead Stories found no record of anyone named AJ Barron publicly claiming to be a Biden body double. The claim…

In a real social media post, did Donald Trump write about a Joe Biden visit to Moscow in 1987 and implicate him in various conspiracy theories? No, that's not true: The supposed post does not appear on the president's official Truth Social account, and there are no reliable reports that it ever did. Biden also never visited Moscow in 1987.…

Did Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania switch to the Republican Party, saying, "I'm never gonna be a communist who believes men should use the girls' bathroom"? No, that's not true: The story originated on a Facebook page known for its satirical content, which carries the warning "Nothing on this page is real." The image supporting the claim is also…