Polling Org Boosting Dem In Mississippi Admits It Fabricated Most Election Surveys

Wikimedia Commons/Public/LaurenShaull

A polling organization admitted to fabricating most of its polling Wednesday after suggesting that Democratic Mississippi Senate nominee Scott Colom was only four points behind his Republican opponent.

Wedgewood Polls said in a statement that the surveys were part of an “experimental project” to expose how easily a fabricated polling firm could mislead the public. The organization posted a poll on Oct. 14 claiming that Colom trailed Republican Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by a 52% to 48% margin.

“Wedgewood Polling, an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry, makes this public statement. Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified, low-quality methodology,” the organization said. “We wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary?”

The organization generated most of its data to test whether media outlets, aggregators and commentators would report on it without verifying the source or methodology, according to the statement. They conducted one legitimate poll regarding the Nebraska Senate race.

FiftyPlusOne contacted Wedgewood Polls Tuesday after finding evidence that the organization fabricated its polling data. Researchers obtained Wedgewood’s raw data from a Mississippi Senate survey and compared its respondent identifiers with genuine records from Pollfish, the platform Wedgewood claimed to use. They found that the identifier and transaction timestamps displayed patterns incompatible with authentic interviews.

Wedgewood Polling confessed to the fabrications after FiftyPlusOne’s contacted them about their findings.

Median Strategies admitted it fabricated its polling data, with one poll indicating that former Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong led her then-opponent David Crowley by over 20 points. Hong lost the race by less than 1% in the Aug. 11 primary.

The Senate Majority PAC, the top campaign spending arm for Senate Democrats, planned to spend $1.2 million to support Colom in Mississippi after polls showed Hyde-Smith leading by single digits. Other polls by Data for Progress and Impact Research found Hyde-Smith leading by single digits, indicating the race was closer than usual.