Bob Sanchez

TLH Fact Check writer

On the Monday prior to Hurricane Michael, when most local residents were just starting to pay attention to the track of that then-distant storm, Tallahassee was the subject of a verbal assault by President Trump, who was in Orlando for a speech.

Fact checking Donald Trump has certain risks. MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi cited two of them that same Monday during a luncheon speech to Tallahassee’s Economic Club of Florida.

First, Velshi said, you’ll be accused of being biased against Trump and being part of the “Fake News Media.”

Second, Velshi said, you’ll be so busy you won’t have much time left for your day job. That’s because Trump spontaneously shares his unfiltered opinions – often during stump speeches at campaign-style rallies, even more often on Twitter.

Another risk is that Trump’s statement and tweets are squishy and constantly evolve – as in his first accusing Tallahassee of having some of “the worst statistics” and days later tweeting Tallahassee is “one of the worst and most corrupt cities” in America to later clarifying that it’s the “worst run” city.

That brings us to…

The Trigger Point

Trump was in Orlando Oct. 8 to speak to the International Association of Chiefs of Police when he was interviewed by WFTV.

Much of the interview dealt with the battle to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, but during that interview he also made several remarks critical of Tallahassee and its mayor as he sought to boost Republican challenger and former congressman Ron DeSantis.

“[DeSantis’] opponent runs a place that has a lot of problems and I know it very well, but it's got a lot of problems, tremendous corruption, tremendous crime.” Without mentioning Gillum by name, Trump continued that the mayor “runs an area and a city that’s got among the worst statistics in the country and certainly in the state.”

We’ll leave it to the voters decide the degree to which Mayor Gillum “runs” this area and the degree to which he is or is not responsible for its problems. Instead, this TLH Fact Check will focus on Trump’s claims about the city’s statistics.

►Census Snapshot: This interactive graphic allows you to compare Leon County to other counties on population, education, household income, poverty levels, real estate info and more.

The task is challenging because the president didn’t specify which statistics he meant were among the nation’s worst. However, his raising the topic shows why there’s a reason the use of statistics in politics has a credibility problem.

It’s evident, for instance, in the growing distrust of political polling, which has incorrectly forecast the results of several recent elections. Moreover, opinion polling in general is plagued by bad sampling, as in asking 10 people in a queue at a Starbucks whether they like coffee.

Of course, non-valid sampling in polling pales in comparison to the abuses found online, where some of the statistics that seem so persuasive of this or that – because they’re on the internet, after all – were fabricated out of thin air.

Even with arguably valid statistics, however, there can be a different kind of problem: the tendency to cherry-pick those that bolster a particular viewpoint and ignore those that don’t. Consider, for instance, the following “statistical selfies” of Tallahassee, which reveal the good, the bad, and the debatable.

The Good

Leon County is the most highly educated county in Florida with 49.9 percent of residents over the age of 25 holding a Bachelor’s, Master’s, professional or doctorate degree, compared to the national average of 24 percent and the Florida average of 22 percent.

Tallahassee is currently the 12th fastest growing metropolitan area in Florida with a growth rate of 12.4 percent, which is higher than the growth rates of Miami and Tampa.

The statistical analysts at Five Thirty-Eight recently reported that based on U.S. Census data, Tallahassee ranked ninth on a list of the top 20 U.S. cities that posted the fastest-growing rate of startup businesses from 2009 to 2014. Related: Tallahassee MSA economy falls from top per capita spot

Tallahassee MSA economy falls from top per capita spot Tallahassee is home to Florida State University, which is one notch away from obtaining its goal of becoming one of the Top 25 public universities in the coveted U.S. News & World Report’s annual college rankings. Released in September, the rankings show FSU has climbed 17 spots to No. 26 since placing No. 43 in 2016. FAMU has also scored a No. 1 ranking in the listing of best public HBCUs.

Trump and Tallahassee:

The Bad

The Florida Department of Health’s 2016 report on infants’ health shows that Leon County’s infant mortality rate is worse than that of 27 other Florida counties, and its rate of low birthweight babies is worse than 46 of Florida’s 67 counties.

Tallahassee is the country’s most economically segregated metro area, according to a 2015 study by the University of Toronto’s Richard Florida. Examining data from 70,000 Census tracts in 350 metro areas, he found that in Tallahassee the rich ($200,000+ annual income) and those with incomes below the poverty line reside in areas that are more economically and geographically separated than in any other metro area. In Tallahassee, the poverty rate among African Americans is 38.4 percent. African American households make $22,771 less than white households. Only 28 percent of African American are homeowners.

The Leon County School district is also dealing with a kind of re-segregation, according to a 2017 LeRoy Collins Institute study that pegs the city and county as home to one of the five most segregated school districts in the state. Nearly 68 percent of Leon County is white, but white students make up only 45 percent of public school enrollment. Of the district's six high schools, only Leon and Lincoln's enrollment closely mirror the county's racial makeup.

The Debatable

TLH Fact Check already investigated President Trump’s claims that the city of Tallahassee has “a tremendous crime problem.” Among our findings: While Leon County has had the highest crime rate in the state four years in a row, 26 Florida cities, including four in Trump’s part-time home of Palm Beach County, have crime rates higher than Tallahassee’s. The TLH Fact Check titled “Investigating claims about crime” was published in The Democrat’s print edition on October 8. Find it at this link

As The Democrat reported earlier in October, “The 32304 zip code that runs from central Tallahassee into northwest Leon County has more residents living in poverty compared to any other zip code in the Sunshine State, according to Florida Chamber of Commerce President Mark Wilson.”

Now the rest of the story. When City-Data.com reported on “The country’s 100 poorest zip codes listed by the IRS,” it received a deluge of comments noting that many of them are in college towns, including the very affluent Charlottesville, VA; Boulder, CO; and Bloomington, IN.

Obviously, a student moonlighting at a restaurant or living off student loans may not have much income to report to the IRS, but he or she is not necessarily living in the same kind of squalor found in typical pockets of poverty. Here’s the linkto that City-Data discussion of the fallibility of zip code statistics yanked out of context.

Conclusion

As Tallahassee residents and visitors are well aware, the city has assets and liabilities, many of which are in the eye of the beholder and difficult to quantify using statistics – although that doesn’t necessarily discourage various entities from trying.

For instance, the website Livability.com – realizing that lists are a kind of online catnip known as “click bait” and coveted by advertisers – specializes in ranking top places on various characteristics ranging from the best college towns to the best places to raise a family. For what it’s worth, from time to time Tallahassee has made those desirable lists.

In contrast, however, a different website, 24/7 Wall Street, ranked Tallahassee as the nation’s 38th worst city for livability and added that “Tallahassee is one of six cities in the Sunshine State to rank among the least livable in the country. …Tallahassee has a relatively high poverty rate.

More than one in every four city residents live below the poverty line compared to 14 percent of Americans nationwide. Additionally, both property and violent crimes are more than twice as common in Tallahassee than they are nationwide.”

Even Tallahassee’s drivers were found wanting, ranking 43rd in Florida according to a report issued by Allstate. However, the ranking was based on a dubious statistic: how often, on average, insured drivers make a claim, not on whether they whiz through red lights or fail to use their turn signals when changing lanes on Capital Circle.

As for the selective use of statistics in political races, like the rankings above, it proves very little except for highlighting the lengths to which candidates will go to win votes.

Meanwhile, the tendency to cherry-pick statistics – whether for political purposes or to promote a product – is a reminder of why the best known saying about crunching the numbers is this: “There are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

TLH Fact Check is a reader service provided by the Tallahassee Democrat and retired award-winning journalist Bob Sanchez. At a time when Tallahassee is ground zero in the gubernatorial election, the capital city may sometimes become the subject of false portrayals by candidates and surrogates in both parties. TLH Fact Check seeks to cut through the politics and present the facts. The project is being fully funded by the Tallahassee Democrat. Email suggestions on future fact checks to letters@tallahassee.com

Past edition of TLH Fact Check:Investigating claims about the Tallahassee and Leon County crime rate