Who: Elizabeth Warren, Democratic candidate for Senate in Massachusetts What: She denied ever claiming she was Native American for professional purposes.

Why it’s dim: It turned out she had. She was listed as a “minority” professor in her positions at two law schools and was also publicized by Harvard as a Native American in the 1990s. This week, researchers discovered that her great-great-great-grandmother was Cherokee, making the “minority” label a bit of a stretch.