Primary preview: Checking Romney on unemployment

The night of his victory in the Nevada caucuses, Mitt Romney used his stump speech to stomp on President Barack Obama’s policies and record.

Romney, who led the Republican field by a sizeable margin in a state hammered by unemployment and foreclosures, used those themes to make his case against Obama.

“Three years ago, a newly elected President Obama told America that if Congress approved his plan to borrow nearly a trillion dollars, he would hold unemployment below 8 percent,” Romney said in his speech in Las Vegas on Feb. 4, 2012.

It’s a common claim by critics of the president’s stimulus plan — a claim voters in the Buckeye State are likely to hear again over the next few weeks leading up to Super Tuesday and the Ohio primary on March 6.

PolitiFact has checked similar claims from others, including House Republican Whip Eric Cantor in 2009, conservative columnist George Will in 2010, former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann in early 2011 and, most recently, from House Speaker John Boehner at the end of 2011.

Each time, it has rated the claim Mostly False. And that’s where Romney’s statement lands on the Truth-O-Meter.