Former Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow says a fabricated poll “killed” her campaign after portraying her as a distant third in the primary and the weakest of the three leading Democrats against Republican Mike Rogers.
McMorrow—a state senator—entered the Democratic primary for the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Gary Peters, making her one of the initially significant contenders alongside Abdul El-Sayed and U.S. Representative Haley Stevens.
The Wedgewood Polls survey, released June 29 and later acknowledged by the organization as fabricated, put McMorrow at just 9 percent in the Democratic primary, compared with 46 percent for El-Sayed and 39 percent for Stevens. It also showed her losing to Rogers by 7 points in a hypothetical general-election matchup, while El-Sayed led Rogers and Stevens was tied with him.
McMorrow suspended her Senate campaign on July 5, less than a week after the poll was released, and about a month before the August 4 primary, though her name remained on the ballot.
El-Sayed subsequently won the Democratic nomination, and McMorrow endorsed him and called for Democrats to unite behind him.
But now, in a series of posts on X, McMorrow blamed Wedgewood’s late-June Michigan poll for her campaign’s downfall, saying “That killed us.”
Newsweek reached out to McMorrow via email for comment.
...
What Did The Poll Say?
Wedgewood Polls claimed it had surveyed 602 likely general-election voters from June 25 to 28, including an oversample of 353 likely Democratic primary voters.
In addition to giving McMorrow a single-figure chance in the primary, the purported poll showed Rogers beating McMorrow 48 percent to 41 percent in a hypothetical general-election matchup, while Stevens tied Rogers at 46 percent and El-Sayed led Rogers 49 percent to 44 percent. The claimed margin of error for the primary sample was ±5.7 percentage points.
But on October 20, Wedgewood Polls acknowledged that the vast majority of the polling it had released was not supported by genuine survey data. The organization described itself as an "experimental project" intended to demonstrate weaknesses in the polling industry.
The admission came after FiftyPlusOne researchers Mary Radcliffe, G. Elliott Morris and Cooper Burton investigated a later Wedgewood Polls survey. They found irregularities in supposedly raw Pollfish data, including respondent and transaction IDs that didn't behave as genuine data from the platform should. When confronted with the findings, Wedgewood later acknowledged that it had fabricated the vast majority of its polling releases.
Wedgewood's polls weren't confined to obscure corners of the internet. They appeared in major polling databases and were reproduced by multiple media organizations, including Newsweek. Newsweek has retracted three stories and corrected others that referenced Wedgewood polls.
McMorrow Says Fake Poll Damaged Campaign
Following Wedgewood's admission, McMorrow described the impact she said the fabricated polling had on her campaign.
“Sure, a point was proven. Polling is broken. But tens of thousands of people poured their hearts, time, energy, hard-earned money into something they believed in - for a year-and-a-half, and it was treated like a game,” she wrote on X. “Our volunteers gave their all. And then some. I felt like I had let so many of them down.”
McMorrow said Wedgewood's fabricated poll did real damage to her campaign, claiming that “donations dried up” and “reporters hounded me with calls to drop out.”
She added that “trust is at an all-time low,” and that the incident should teach politicians and voters “don’t get complacent and don’t trust the polls.”
Wedgewood polls said in a statement on X that falsifying the poll was “far too easy” and added that “the polling industry needs reform.”
McMorrow echoed this, writing on Wednesday: “I hope Democrats are ready to blow up the system with campaign finance and transparency reforms.”
The Campaign Background
Although McMorrow now says the polling severely damaged her campaign, there were signs that her candidacy was already struggling before Wedgewood released its Michigan poll.
When McMorrow suspended her campaign on July 5, however, the Associated Press reported that a person with direct knowledge of her decision said the biggest factor was an influx of outside spending supporting Stevens. The AP reported that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee had poured millions of dollars into ads supporting Stevens, leaving McMorrow and El-Sayed struggling to keep pace.
In an August interview with WLNS, before Wedgewood's fabrication was revealed, McMorrow also pointed to outside spending as a decisive factor in the race.
Other legitimate polls had also recorded McMorrow in single digits. A June 16 Mitchell Research poll put McMorrow at 6 percent, behind El-Sayed on 42 percent and Stevens on 33 percent. A Susquehanna Polling survey conducted June 9 to 14 put McMorrow at 9 percent, although 49 percent of Democratic primary voters surveyed were undecided. A July 1 Quantus Insights poll put her at 8 percent.
This was a significant departure from earlier in the campaign when an April Emerson College Polling survey had Mallory McMorrow tied for first with Abdul El-Sayed at 24 percent each, with Haley Stevens at 13 percent.
McMorrow also criticized the earlier Mitchell Research poll, which she called “bulls***” citing what she described as “shoddy methodology.” MIRS editor Kyle Melinn previously said the outlet declined to publish the poll because of concerns over its use of an open survey link, after consulting other pollsters. Mitchell defended the methodology. There is no suggestion that the survey was fabricated in the manner of Wedgewood's polls.
Newsweek reached out to Mitchell Research via email for comment.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton, Gray R. Thomas