DNC 2024: Read our fact-checks and stories from the convention

Democrats’ messaging throughout the four days of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was one of exuberance and determination that culminated with Vice President Kamala Harris officially accepting the presidential nomination.

Harris rallied her base on issues including abortion rights, voting rights and the economy. But she also asked all Americans "regardless of party, race, gender or the language your grandmother speaks" to "chart a new way forward."

Vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz leaned into his former role as a high school football coach and touted his record as lawmaker and governor.

The DNC speaker list featured multiple other high-profile Democrats, including President Joe Biden, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former first lady Michelle Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

PolitiFact fact-checks politicians across the political spectrum. We also fact-checked the Republican National Convention in July. Read more about our process.

Here’s a wrap-up of the claims we fact-checked during the DNC, day by day.

President Joe Biden speaks Aug. 19, 2024, during the first day of Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

Biden was the night’s most notable speaker. Throughout the night, attendees chanted, "Thank you, Joe" as speakers praised Biden’s term and warned about reelecting Donald Trump as president.

Biden: "Instead of paying $400 a month for insulin, seniors with diabetes will pay $35 a month."

Half True.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed in 2022, capped out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month for Medicare beneficiaries. But pharmaceutical experts told PolitiFact that most beneficiaries were likely not paying more than $400 before the law.

Costs and other factors vary, experts said, so it is possible that some Medicare beneficiaries might have paid as much as $400 for insulin in a given month.

Biden: The average semiconductor industry salary "will be over $100,000 a year, and you don't need a college degree."

Mostly False. 

Although the average semiconductor industry salary is around $170,000, that figure includes salaries for jobs that require college degrees. The most a person makes without a college degree is about $70,000, according to a 2021 report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics, an industry group.

Read all our Day 1 fact-checks here.

Former President Barack Obama speaks Aug. 20, 2024, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

The Obamas were the night’s star speakers. Michelle Obama rallied the convention with chants of "Do something" for the Harris-Walz campaign, while Barack Obama lauded Biden’s achievements.

Michelle Obama: One of Trump’s proposals is "shutting down the Department of Education."

True.

Trump has proposed to close the federal Department of Education.

The agency’s duties would go to states under Trump’s plans. "In connection with totally refocusing schools on succeeding in the world of work, President Trump pledges to close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and to send all education work and needs back to the states," according to his campaign website.

Barack Obama: Under Joe Biden, the U.S. produced "15 million jobs, higher wages, lower health care costs."

Half True.

The U.S. has added 15.8 million jobs under Biden’s presidency but some were jobs regained after pandemic-induced unemployment. Although wages are also higher, they haven’t always kept up with high inflation. Health care costs hinge on several factors, including insurance. But, U.S. health care expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product peaked during the pandemic in 2020 and have since fallen roughly to prepandemic levels.

Read all our Day 2 fact-checks here.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks Aug. 21, 2024, after accepting the Democratic vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

Walz took the stage on Night 3, highlighting his background as a public school teacher, high school football coach and National Guard veteran, and his record in Congress and as governor.

The Democratic vice presidential nominee also attacked Trump and his policies, calling them "weird" but also "wrong" and "dangerous." Another key Night 3 speaker was Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Walz: "And we know if these guys get back in the White House … they’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act."

This is a standard line in Harris’ and Walz’s stump speeches. Trump’s own words often make his position tough to discern. But he isn’t actively campaigning on this position.

Trump worked unsuccessfully as president to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He maintained his position through campaigning in 2023.

But Trump flip-flopped in March 2024, writing on Truth Social that he "isn’t running to terminate" the ACA but to make it "better" and "less expensive." He hasn’t detailed how he’d do that.

Buttigieg: "Crime was higher on (Trump’s) watch."

Half True.

The violent crime rate has decreased under Biden, although the most recent data isn’t official. But property crime increased in 2022, reversing a longtime trend, FBI data shows. 

The U.S. violent crime rate dropped for the first three years of Trump’s presidency before spiking in 2020. That spike was especially sharp for murders: The 2020 increase was nearly triple the previous record for any year dating back to at least 1961.

The official data from Biden’s term is incomplete (the last full year of FBI data is from 2022), but preliminary government estimates and independent measurements show significant declines in violent crime over the past year and a half. Official data from 2023 is expected in October.

Read all our Day 3 fact-checks here.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks Aug. 22, 2024, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP)

On the DNC’s final night, Harris formally accepted the Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the second woman, second Black person and first Asian American to do so. Harris shared her story as a daughter of immigrants — her father coming to the U.S. from Jamaica and her mother from India — and how that shaped her journey to the top of the Democratic ticket.

She also leaned into several key policy themes: abortion rights, voting rights, foreign policy, the economy and immigration.

Here are some of Harris’ statements that we fact-checked.

Trump "plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women's miscarriages and abortions."

Mostly False.

What Harris describes is Project 2025, a 900-page policy manual produced by some of Trump’s allies, but is not something Trump himself has claimed. Project 2025 doesn’t mention a "national anti-abortion coordinator." The document calls for a "pro-life politically appointed Senior Coordinator of the Office of Women, Children, and Families."

It says the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s abortion surveillance and maternal mortality reporting systems are inadequate and proposes withholding federal money from states that don’t report to the CDC how many abortions happen in their states.

In an April interview with Time magazine, Trump said some states "might" choose to monitor and punish women for illegal abortions. But, when asked about the topic, he told the reporter to "speak to the individual states" about it.

"I … helped pass a homeowner bill of rights, one of the first of its kind in the nation."

True. 

As California’s attorney general, Harris was part of a multistate settlement that won debt relief for homeowners affected by the 2007-10 housing crisis. When a settlement agreement was reached in 2012, California won a combined $20 billion for its homeowners. 

In July 2012, the California Legislature passed the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, a set of laws to protect homeowners from foreclosures. The laws, which were modeled largely after the foreclosure lawsuit, took effect in January 2013. Harris endorsed them. 

In 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that the legislation made California the first state to prohibit this practice. And The Associated Press wrote that California would become the first state to write the parts of the mortgage settlement into law.

Read all our Day 4 fact-checks here.

No, social media videos do not show Kamala Harris intoxicated at public events 

Viral posts falsely claimed Harris couldn’t stand up at the DNC because she was inebriated. But Harris stood and applauded several times and the clip of her seated was when delegates cheered for her.

No, the DNC hasn’t canceled women’s restrooms

When social media posts falsely claimed the DNC had no women’s restrooms at the press filing center, PolitiFact’s on-the-ground journalists went counting. We found that there were several women’s bathrooms throughout the event space, far outnumbering gender-neutral bathrooms.

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Verificamos los discursos del primer día de la Convención Nacional Demócrata 

Verificamos lo que dijeron Barack Obama y otros demócratas el día 2 de la convención en Chicago 

¿Qué tan ciertos fueron los discursos de Tim Walz y otros durante la Convención Nacional Demócrata? 

Esto es lo que verificamos del discurso de aceptación de Kamala Harria en la convención demócrata ​

PolitiFact Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson, Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman, Staff Writers Grace Abels, Madison Czopek, Samantha Putterman, Loreben Tuquero and Maria Ramirez Uribe and Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.