A fake polling company that released polls in Los Angeles and Wisconsin races this month said on Aug. 17 that it fabricated its data as part of a “social experiment” project.
“Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the company posted on its now-defunct website.
The entity has declined to identify who operated the website and the fake polling company and didn’t respond to The Epoch Times’ request for information.
All surveys and data were removed from the site on Aug. 18.
“All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data,” Median Strategies stated.
The disclosure prompted Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s reelection campaign to remove a social media post cheering the Median Strategies poll results released Aug. 12 showing she led challenger Nithya Raman by 11 points.
Bass’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment but told the Los Angeles Times that “any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Raman’s campaign also didn’t respond to a request for comment but, in comments to the Times, criticized Bass for failing to research the polling company before sharing the results.
Bass’s financial records showed she did pay $67,250 for polling and research from David Binder Research in San Francisco, according to her latest campaign report ending June 30.
Binder is a longtime campaign strategist of former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama. Binder was one of the first people Obama called when he decided to run for president, his former strategist Davide Axelrod told ABC News.
In another fake poll this month, a Median Strategies survey claimed Wisconsin Rep. Francesca Hong led Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley by 23 points in the Democratic primary for governor on Aug. 11.
The candidates didn’t advertise the poll on their social media platforms.
State Navigate, a left-leaning news outlet, also conducted a poll in the same Wisconsin governor’s race that had similar results, showing Hong with a 22-point lead four days before the primary election.
Michael Foley, an elections coordinator with State Navigate, told The Epoch Times the polling company conducted its own research and wasn’t affiliated with Median Strategies.
“State Navigate wasn’t influenced by and had nothing to do with Median Strategies’ fake poll, and we actually painstakingly conducted all the polls listed on our report card and elsewhere on our website ourselves,” Foley said in an email.
Los Angeles Times reporter Noah Goldberg was the first to break the news about the bogus pollsters after trying to reach out to them last week.
Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, who was edged out of the top two spots in the primary, commented on the fabricated poll.
The company also stated no individuals involved with Median Strategies received compensation or financial benefit from the project, which was apparently not funded, commissioned, or directed by a candidate, campaign, political party, political action committee, media organization, or outside entity.
The project also claimed it was not involved in election prediction markets, betting markets, or other schemes tied to races covered in its polls.
