Fake Polls Exposed: Median Strategies’ Short-Term Social Experiment

Median Strategies, a newly formed polling outfit, released two high-profile surveys that showed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading City Council member Nithya Raman by roughly 12 points and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong ahead of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley by more than 20 points. The firm later admitted the releases were fabricated as part of a “short-term social experiment” to test how unverified polling data spreads through the political information ecosystem.

Fox News (website)

The experiment arrived amid a surge of new pollsters—about 30 have launched this year—making it harder for journalists and the public to assess survey quality. Median Strategies claimed no partisan clients or campaign funding and promoted “trustworthy polling, rebuilt.” Its first public release was a poll of 560 Los Angeles voters conducted between July 30 and August 5, reporting a 4.1 percent margin of error. A second release claimed a 20-point lead for Hong in the Wisconsin primary. Both polls were amplified on social media and cited by local outlets before the firm’s admission of fabrication.

New York Times

• Los Angeles poll: 560 voters; margin of error 4.1 percent; Bass lead ? 12 points; 16 percent of respondents had voted for Spencer Pratt in the June 2 primary, with 85 percent “planning to vote for Bass.”

The Hill

• Wisconsin poll: Initially reported a > 20-point lead for Hong; another source described the lead as 23 points. Hong ultimately lost to Crowley by less than one percentage point.

Hot Air

• Social media reach: Pratt’s repost of the Los Angeles poll generated roughly 5,000 reposts and 38,000 likes.

NOTUS

• The Raman campaign called the Bass-promoted poll a “push poll” and criticized the Bass team for failing to vet the source.

The Hill

• Spencer Pratt mocked the poll on X, questioning the credibility of the alleged voter shift toward Bass.

NOTUS

• Bass campaign spokesperson Alex Stack emphasized that the poll had been reported by a news outlet and urged legal scrutiny of any malicious influence.

NOTUS

• Republican activist Spencer Pratt ridiculed the poll’s methodology, suggesting voters would not simply transfer support from his candidacy to Bass.

NOTUS

• The Wisconsin poll’s lead size is reported inconsistently: the New York Times and Fox News cite a “more than 20-point” advantage for Hong, while Breitbart references a “23-point” lead. No major polling aggregator listed the Median Strategies survey, leaving its methodology and sampling details unverified.

Breitbart

• The firm’s social-media presence was minimal (? 20 followers) and its methodology section consisted of a single sentence, providing no transparency on weighting or question wording.

Median Strategies admits LA mayor poll was fake social experiment

• “LOL you think my voters are going to vote for the crying carpetbagger in charge of homelessness who ‘found’ 40K votes on Skid Row 7 days after the election?” — Republican Spencer Pratt

NOTUS

• “This poll was reported on by a news outlet,” — Alex Stack, Bass campaign spokesperson

NOTUS

• “It is the latest example of an administration that too often struggles to get the basics right — from posting about a pothole repair before the pothole was fixed to repeatedly giving Boyle Heights residents a Lineage cleanup deadline that the company now disputes,” — Liz Garcia, Raman campaign spokesman

Patch

Median Strategies has announced it will not publish further polls and has effectively ceased operations. Stakeholders in the Los Angeles and Wisconsin races have called for investigations into potential “bad-faith” influences, but no formal inquiries have been announced as of this writing.

Breitbart