With less than a month to go until the November midterms, both parties have blanketed the airwaves with campaign ads in battleground states as they seek control over Congress.
In Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina — three of the most competitive Senate races in the country — candidates and groups supporting them have all spent millions on ads faulting their opposition with failing to curb the cost of living, a top issue for voters, among other attacks.
Here’s a fact check of some of those claims.
What Was Said
“Here are the facts. It’s Ashley Hinson who’s missed nearly 200 votes in Congress. Votes to crack down on child pornography, reduce crime and lower health care costs.” — Senate Majority PAC, a top Democratic super PAC, in an ad that began airing in September
This is misleading. Representative Ashley Hinson, the Republican Senate candidate in Iowa, and various groups supporting her candidacy have spent millions of dollars on ads attacking Josh Turek, a state representative and the Democratic nominee, for missing 58 percent of votes in the Iowa legislature this year (the claim is accurate).
In response, Mr. Turek and groups that support him have retorted that Ms. Hinson, too, has a record of absenteeism in the House — including missing votes to lower health care costs — by making an apples-to-oranges comparison.
The Senate Majority PAC cited Ms. Hinson missing 33 roll-call votes — or recorded votes on the House floor — as well as 163 votes in various committees she sits on since January 2021, when she first entered office.
But typically, a missed vote refers to a roll-call vote on the House floor, and Ms. Hinson actually has a better attendance record than most members of Congress. According to GovTrack, a nonprofit website that tracks congressional activities, Ms. Hinson has missed 33 of 2,915 roll-call votes from January 2021 to September 2026. That’s about 1.1 percent, less than the median of 2.1 percent among current members in the House. This year, she has missed five out of 314 votes, about 1.6 percent.
“A missed vote is a missed vote, and Ashley Hinson missed nearly 200 of them during her time in Congress,” Lauren French, a spokeswoman for the Democratic group, said in a statement.
The tally in the ad included missed committee votes. Ms. Hinson missed a roll-call vote in the House Appropriations Committee on a specific proposal to increase funding for community-based violence prevention programs (the motion failed 28 to 34).
Senate Majority PAC said Ms. Hinson missed a voice vote on an amendment to increase funding for programs that combat the exploitation of children and another voice vote on extending medical education programs in rural areas. But it is not clear whether Ms. Hinson was present for those particular votes as, by definition, voice votes do not take attendance. Both amendments passed without any opposition.
Billy Fuerst, a spokesman for the Hinson campaign, argued that by the ad’s logic, there is no record of any member of Congress supporting those amendments since names and position were not logged. Morevoer, he said, Ms. Hinson voted to advance the funding bills that included the two provisions to the full House.
What Was Said
“Pappas voted to line the pockets of health insurers with billions of tax dollars. Pappas even voted against vital funding for rural and vulnerable hospitals. Bigger profits for big insurance, higher costs for you.” — No Going Back PAC, a Republican super PAC, in an ad that began airing in September
This is misleading. This ad attacking Representative Chris Pappas, the Democratic nominee for Senate in New Hampshire, describes his opposition to the Republicans’ signature tax cut and domestic spending package as a vote against funding for rural hospitals.
That characterization omits the bulk of what the legislation actually does (extend tax cuts and cut social safety net programs). And it ignores that a provision creating a fund for rural hospitals was largely included to address deep funding cuts to Medicaid that threatened rural hospitals.
The domestic spending legislation created a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals but also cut Medicaid spending in rural areas by $137 billion over a decade, according to an analysis by KFF, a health policy nonprofit. So while Mr. Pappas technically voted against the $50 billion fund, he also voted against the $137 billion cut to rural Medicaid spending.
The ad also cites Mr. Pappas’s support for legislation to extend extra subsidies for Obamacare as votes to “line the pockets of health insurers,” echoing a longstanding criticism.
Extra subsidies created in 2021 during the pandemic made health insurance less expensive for most people enrolled in plans under the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. But despite Democratic efforts to extend them and Mr. Pappas’s support, those subsidies expired this year. As a result, millions of Americans have dropped Obamacare coverage, and premiums have increased for many more. Conservative critics have argued that the extra subsidies enriched insurers, even as premiums continued to increase.
The ad was funded by No Going Back PAC, a new super PAC with ties to MAGA Inc., President Trump’s main super PAC. The group said Mr. Pappas “should be ashamed” of his vote.
What Was Said
“I’m going to show you something. No A.I., no special effects, just Michael Whatley in his own words: ‘Grocery prices are down, gasoline prices are down, housing prices are down, inflation is down.’ Unbelievable. And so is this: ‘There is no inflation.’” — Former Gov. Roy Cooper, the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina, in an ad that began airing in September
This needs context. It’s true that the ad features remarks made by Michael Whatley, the Republican candidate, without special effects or enhancements by artificial intelligence. But the ad omits that those remarks occurred more than a year earlier, in an interview in July 2025, when overall prices were increasing at a slower pace and gas prices were stable.
At the time Mr. Whatley made those remarks, mortgage rates had dipped slightly and Mr. Trump’s war in Iran, and its accompanying surge in gas prices, was still months away. The New York Times had reported that inflation had accelerated, but remained relatively calm in the early months of the second Trump administration. Economists, though, were warning that the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies would soon manifest in the form of higher prices.
The average price for gas in the country was $3.13 a gallon, not too different from the $3.10 a gallon at the end of January 2025, when Mr. Trump began his second term. Average 30-year mortgage rates had fallen to about 6.7 percent in July 2025 from about 7 percent that January.
“Prices were down considerably in 2025 from the record-setting inflation caused by Joe Biden’s reckless spending policies endorsed by Roy Cooper,” DJ Griffin, a spokesman for the Whatley campaign, said in a statement.
Still, Mr. Whatley was wrong that grocery prices, housing and inflation were “down” in the summer of 2025. The Consumer Price Index had risen by 2.7 percent in June 2025 from a year earlier, housing by 4 percent and food-at-home by 2.4 percent. Median home prices in June had also risen, albeit modestly, by 1.8 percent year-over-year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
In comparison, the C.P.I. increased by 3.4 percent this August, the latest available data, food-at-home by 2.2 percent and housing by 3.1 percent. In the first week of October, gas prices averaged $4.35, and mortgage rates were higher than when Mr. Trump took office.
The Cooper campaign said Mr. Whatley has for months engaged in a pattern of downplaying and making false statements about inflation, for example, saying in January that “there is no inflation” and in September that “we are not getting gouged” on gas prices.
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