Pollster Cited by Major Outlets Admits Most of Its Surveys Were Fake, Calls It a ‘Social Experiment’
A polling firm whose numbers appeared in news stories and major polling averages this year has admitted that most of its surveys were fabricated, two weeks before the midterm elections.
Wedgewood Polls made the admission Tuesday on X after researchers at the election analysis site FiftyPlusOne asked it to respond to evidence that its raw data was fake.
The firm called the operation a “social experiment” meant to test how easily a fictitious pollster could win recognition from aggregators and the press. “The short answer: Far too easy,” it wrote, Newsweek reported.
Wedgewood said the vast majority of its releases were not backed by genuine survey data. It claimed one crowdfunded poll of Nebraska’s Senate race was real.
FiftyPlusOne researchers Mary Radcliffe, G. Elliott Morris and Cooper Burton obtained Wedgewood’s raw data for a Mississippi Senate survey that the firm said it conducted through the online platform Pollfish.
To test it, FiftyPlusOne paid for its own Pollfish survey and compared the respondent and transaction ID numbers. Wedgewood’s IDs did not behave the way genuine platform data does, the site said.
FiftyPlusOne said Wedgewood ignored its questions, posted the admission instead and sent a profane private message minutes beforehand. The site has removed Wedgewood’s surveys from its database and averages.
The polls had spread widely. Newsweek said it retracted three articles and corrected others, and that The Hill, Breitbart, The Daily Beast and the Washington Examiner also published Wedgewood results, according to its report.
The numbers were also included in databases kept by The New York Times, Nate Silver, VoteHub and FiftyPlusOne. Decision Desk HQ said it removed 17 Wedgewood polls from its race lists and averages.
Red flags appeared early. Wedgewood surfaced in June, and an early poll showed John Fleming leading Julia Letlow by 4 points in Louisiana’s GOP Senate primary. Letlow won by almost 14 points.
An August review by Straight Arrow News found the firm’s website listed no staff names, phone number or location, Newsweek reported. The Times listed its polls with a disclaimer that it did not meet the paper’s standards.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who suspended her Democratic Senate campaign July 5, said a late-June Wedgewood poll showing her in single digits helped dry up donations and demoralize volunteers.
Columbia University statistician Andrew Gelman praised the investigators and questioned on his blog why the firm’s “experiment” explanation surfaced only when the fabrication was exposed.
It is the second fake-poll episode this year. In August, a group called Median Strategies admitted publishing fabricated polls in three states, including one shared by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s campaign, the AP reported.
The identities of everyone behind Wedgewood remain unclear. FiftyPlusOne said the firm gave it two names, Jack Sims and Andrew Prater, and that it will not aggregate polls from the firm’s founders in the future.
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