Morning Consult: Katie McGinty College Story Becomes Campaign Issue

A revelation that Democrat Katie McGinty may have overstated her college credentials has dogged her campaign against Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey ever since it was first reported by BuzzFeedon Wednesday.

As she was leaving a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., on Thursday evening, an operative with the conservative research arm America Rising hollered a question at her about why she “lied” about being the first in her family to go to college.

In the video, revealed first to Morning Consult, McGinty did not respond.

McGinty had said a number of times she was the first in her family to go to college, but the report found that her brother, John McGinty, had attended one well before she did. The McGinty campaign has attempted to clarify that she was the first to attend a four-year college right out of high school, while her brother went to a two-year program before transferring his credits to a four-year school.

The story has caught the attention of her home-state press. A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist used it as a peg for a column entitled, “Why do politicians lie,” while a reporter wrote that it “chips away at the blue-collar story McGinty has been telling.”

McGinty is not the first Democratic Senate candidate this cycle who has had their academic story questioned. Last month, Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy – one of two Democrats running for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Marco Rubio – took fire for exaggerating his academic record in what his campaign called an “inadvertent error.”

This article was excerpted from Morning Consult. Click here to read the full article online.