False Report: 2024 Presidential Election

America may never have had a presidential election in which voters were more misinformed. We can blame biased reporting, social media scammers, foreign interference, or politicians who purposely mislead us. But ultimately, voters must learn to distinguish fact from fiction.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Where people are well informed, they can trust their government to be governed by confidence.” The good news is that both Democrats and Republicans recognize that democracy is at risk in this upcoming election. Let's wait and see what happens when voters are deceived on the issues they care about most.

With just a few months left until the November election, America's most trusted experts and organizations should mount an aggressive national campaign to expose the truth about these issues.

economyAccording to a new Harris/Guardian poll, about three in five Americans believe the economy is in a recession (it's not; GDP is growing), about half think the stock market has fallen this year (it's up more than 12%), and half think the unemployment rate is at a 50-year high (it's near a 50-year low).

Bloomberg notes that during Biden's first term, the number of Americans without health insurance hit an all-time low and the economy added nearly 15 million jobs during his first three years in office — the most ever by any president at that time. Families are wealthier and more financially secure than ever, income inequality has narrowed, and “family assets across income groups are stronger than at any point this century.”

While inflation remains a major concern among voters, Bloomberg notes that it is falling at a rate unprecedented in modern history. “The cost of living in the U.S. is on track to return to pre-pandemic levels this year, after rising to a 40-year high during the Biden administration's first two years,” the company said.

Bloomberg concludes that “with a strong labor market, strengthening household finances and improving consumer and business confidence, winning a second term should be a breeze for President Joe Biden.”

ImmigrationThe Associated Press noted that former President Trump has stoked fears about immigrants with false statements that have sparked “the nation's deepest rifts over race and national identity.”

“In speeches and online posts, Trump has stepped up his anti-immigration rhetoric… portraying immigrants as dangerous criminals who 'stain American blood,'” the Associated Press noted. Recent polls have found that roughly two-thirds of Americans are dissatisfied with Biden's approach to border security.

But as the conservative Cato Institute pointed out in 2021, many of Donald Trump's claims are false. For example, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. There are fewer immigrants to the United States than to most other wealthy countries. And the policies Trump has adopted to stop immigration are “inherently capricious” and “violate every fundamental element of the rule of law.”

Biden has issued more than 500 executive orders to improve immigration policy. Earlier this year, Biden's team and lawmakers reached a bipartisan agreement on the most significant reforms in decades, but Republicans tore up the deal after Trump voiced his opposition. As ABC News reported, “With an eye on the November election, it's clear why Trump doesn't want immigration reform passed right now.”

Worsening climate changeToday, twice as many voters are concerned about global warming as those who don't care about it. And their concerns are justified: Climate change is a perpetual threat that has already killed Americans and endangered our economy. Over the past 40 years, major weather disasters have caused nearly $3 trillion in damages. Only five months into this year, experts are predicting the worst hurricane season on record, and FEMA already expects a nearly $1.4 billion shortfall in its major disaster response budget through August.

Meanwhile, Biden's signature climate policy, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), invests $370 billion in the nation's clean energy transition. One year after its passage, the IRA is expected to generate 280 clean energy projects and $282 billion in investment, creating 175,000 jobs across 44 states.

The IRA has led to “rapid developments in the energy and climate sectors” in the U.S. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that renewables, battery storage, and nuclear power will account for up to 96% of new electricity capacity built in the U.S. this year, while solar power production will increase by 75% in 2025 compared to 2023.

A survey released in January concluded that while many voters prioritize issues like the economy, the number of people in both parties concerned about climate change is enough to tip the election in Biden's favor in November. But a new Associated Press poll shows the IRA “is not widely known among the general public and may not provide the electoral boost Biden is looking for.”

To make matters worse, a recent poll found that a third of voters believe clean energy will have a negative or neutral impact on job growth, the economy, and national security. Yet defense experts point out that climate change is a major security threat and that job growth in the clean energy sector has outpaced overall U.S. job growth in recent years.

What's Trump's position? He still calls climate change “one of the greatest scams of all time.” He even offered oil executives a deal: he'd roll back Biden's climate change mitigation policies if oil companies donated an additional $1 billion to his campaign (about $3 per person in the U.S.).

One of the biggest misconceptions is that Biden was an incompetent president. However, a recent “expert survey” by historians found that Biden was the 14th greatest president of the 46 American presidents in history, behind leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson, but greater than Ronald Reagan and the two former presidents George W. Bush. Trump was last.

American democracy is in big trouble if it depends on a well-informed electorate. But with a major party presidential candidate who is a habitual liar, the nation's most-watched cable news network convicted of lying, and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warning that foreign interference in this year's election will be “more sophisticated and aggressive in both scale and scope,” it's no wonder voters need some help distinguishing fact from fiction.

William Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a bipartisan initiative founded in 2007 to work with national thought leaders to develop recommendations for national climate and energy policy. He is a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.