Washington, DC – Yesterday, Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station WESA fact checked a new TV ad that came out in support of GOP extremist and AG nominee Dave Sunday in Pennsylvania. The ad, paid for by the far-right Commonwealth Leaders Fund—a billionaire-funded group trying to buy the AG race—contained several lies and WESA dug into Sunday’s soft on crime history and falsities around keeping Pennsylvania’s safe. WESA also noted several strong qualities of Democratic nominee Eugene DePasqale that make him the right pick for Attorney General. 

Key Highlights:

• “The ad also cites a news account that shows a 75% drop in homicides in the city of York, the county’s largest municipality. The entire county, which Sunday’s office oversees, had a drop about half that size — from 30 homicides in 2022 to 19 in 2023 — according to a report by the York County Coroner.”

• “…But overall the coroner found that homicide rates have mostly been steady since before Sunday took office: Despite spikes in 2017 and 2022, the county saw an average of around 20 homicides a year between 2013 and 2023.”

• “DePasquale’s campaign adds that as auditor general, he ‘made enormous improvements to Pennsylvania’s safety,’ by investigating a backlog of untested rape kits and the staffing at a child-abuse reporting hotline.

• “The campaign also said Sunday in fact has ‘a very mixed record on actually prosecuting violent crime — particularly crimes against women.’ It cited a number of cases in which it argued Sunday had given too-generous plea deals or failed to secure convictions. Among them was a case involving a York police officer who appeared in a June 2024 Washington Post investigation of police officers who sexually exploited minors. The officer was given a plea deal that resulted in a misdemeanor and probation, reportedly leaving the judge in the case to wonder, ‘Should I have done more?’”

• “DePasquale’s campaign noted that he, too, has support from law enforcement, including the state’s correctional officers association, a Teamsters group that represents police officers, and a number of Democratic sheriffs. Given that support, his campaign said, ‘It’s laughable to consider that he would support efforts to defund their departments.’”

• “DePasquale also objected that the ad, by superimposing his image on a protest, ‘includes altered images of Eugene at a rally he never attended. … This office requires someone with unimpeachable honesty, and that is not what Dave Sunday has on display here.’”

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