AP FACT CHECK: Off-base claims on economics, campaign money and guns in Democratic debate

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER and CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders persisted in using shopworn stats on income inequality and Hillary Rodham Clinton glossed over the well-heeled donors to her campaign in the latest Democratic presidential debate.

Some of the claims in the debate Saturday night and how they compare with the facts:

CLINTON: "Since we last debated in Las Vegas, nearly 3,000 people have been killed by guns. Two hundred children have been killed. This is an emergency." She said that in the same period there have been 21 mass shootings, "including one last weekend in Des Moines where three were murdered."

THE FACTS: The claim appears to be unsupported on all counts.

The Gun Violence Archive has recorded 11,485 gun deaths in the U.S. so far this year, an average of just under 1,000 per month, making Clinton's figure appear to be highly exaggerated. The archive had more detailed data for children and teenagers, showing 70 from those age groups killed by firearms since the Democratic candidates debated Oct. 13 — not 200 as she claimed.

Asked to explain the discrepancy, Clinton's campaign pointed to 2013 statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 2010 figures from the Children's Defense Fund. But that's not the time period she said she was talking about.

The only mass shooting recently in Des Moines was Nov. 8, when four people were shot at a night club. One was killed, not three.

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SANDERS: "People are working longer hours for lower wages, and almost all of the new income and wealth goes to the top 1 percent."

THE FACTS: As he did in the last debate, Sanders leaned on outdated data.

In the first five years of the economic recovery, 2009-2014, the richest 1 percent captured 58 percent of income growth. That's according to Emmanuel Saez, a University of California economist whose research Sanders uses. That's a hefty share, but far short of "almost all."

In the first three years of the recovery, 2009-2012, the richest 1 percent did capture 91 percent of the growth in income. But part of that gain was an accounting maneuver as the wealthiest pulled income forward to 2012 in advance of tax increases that took effect in 2013 on the biggest earners.

Many companies paid out greater bonuses to their highest-paid employees in 2012 before the higher tax rates took effect. Those bonuses then fell back in 2013. And in 2014, the bottom 99 percent finally saw their incomes rise 3.3 percent, the biggest gain in 15 years.

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SANDERS: "I am running a campaign differently than any other candidate. We are relying on small campaign donors, 750,000 of them, 30 bucks a piece. That's who I'm indebted to."

CLINTON: "I have hundreds of thousands of donors, most of them small."

THE FACTS: It's hardly unusual for most of a candidate's donors to be people who send small amounts. What's more telling about the nature of a candidate's appeal is how much of the campaign's money comes from small and big givers.

On that score, Clinton is taking the big money while Sanders is the one drawing from the grassroots.

Over the course of her presidential campaign, through the end of September, 17 percent of her total fundraising haul has come from donors giving $200 or less. For Sanders? Nearly 74 percent.

Moreover, Sanders has not blessed any super PACs to spend money on his behalf.

By contrast some of Clinton's top former aides are entrenched at a super PAC that is expecting to raise more than $100 million to help her throughout the course of the presidential race. That group has already netted at least seven separate $1 million checks from some of the wealthiest Democratic donors in the country.

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MARTIN O'MALLEY: "Under Ronald Reagan's first term, the highest marginal rate was 70 percent."