Michele Tafoya claims 30% of California is homeless during Fox News appearance

Michele Tafoya was a very good sports reporter, but as for her ability as an aspiring politician, she at least appears to be a gullible one.

After spending decades as a prominent sideline reporter, Tafoya has pivoted to conservative media, launching her own podcast and regularly chiming in on culture-war commentary. Now she’s attempting to complete the pivot by running for the United States Senate in Minnesota as a Republican.

Earlier this week, the GOP Senate candidate appeared on Fox News’ weeknight show Gutfeld! where she shared what seemed like an obviously false statistic. But even as she uttered the stat aloud, Tafoya proceeded to double down.

“Homelessness, almost 30% of Californians are homeless on any given night! 30%!” Tafoya repeated the number to accentuate its absurdity. “That is the largest margin by far.”

Realizing that percentage sounds a bit high, Tafoya quickly amended the number to say it might only be 28% of Californians who are homeless. And if that number still sounds as absurd to you as it did to host Greg Gutfeld, who responded with an appropriate look of befuddlement, that’s because the absurd statistic was wildly incorrect. Current data suggest that 0.48% of Californians are homeless, far lower than the 30% or even 28% estimated by Tafoya.

There was a lot of fake news about the Super Bowl, suggesting that California and San Francisco were apocalyptic. But Tafoya’s stat about homelessness in the state exceeds all those other headlines.

Currently, more than 39 million people are living in California, which means that if 30% were homeless, there would be nearly 12 million people without a place to live. We’ve all made mistakes with numbers or been duped by a fake statistic. But it’s perplexing to think Tafoya could have prepared this stat believing one out of every three people in California are homeless, and decided to bring it to national television without pausing to question if it makes sense.

A few years ago, it was estimated that California accounts for nearly 30% of the country’s homeless population, which would seem to be where Tafoya made the mistake. But no, 30% of California’s population is not homeless.