A pollster admitted this week to using fabricated data in its surveys that were picked up by leading publications across the U.S., claiming the stunt was an “experimental project” intended to showcase the “vulnerabilities” of the polling industry. The announcement has shaken trust in polling infrastructure ahead of the midterms, especially as some candidates say their campaigns were directly harmed by the fake numbers.
After election analysis website FiftyPlusOne submitted an inquiry to Wedgewood Polls regarding the authenticity of its data and methodologies, the pollster put out a statement across social media on Tuesday, saying it had been conducting a test to show "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?" In the statement, which has since been deleted, the group claimed it had been “far too easy” to distribute false data and insisted it "highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation.”
Wedgewood's polls had been used by multiple national outlets for their midterm reporting, including the New York Times, Newsweek, MS NOW, and POLITICO. The Times, which cited around 15 Wedgewood polls between June and October, has since removed the data from its stories. In an accompanying editor’s note, the publication detailed its checking process for polls and said Wedgewood had answered several of their inquiries prior to the data being published, including questions on the identities of the group’s pollsters, the methods used to draw their samples, and the source of their funding.
TIME's email to Wedgewood Polls bounced back.
In another fraudulent polling operation uncovered in August, a company called Median Strategies fabricated polls for races in Wisconsin, Nevada, and California and similarly called the ploy a “social experiment” in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
“It's very troubling that we've had two examples of this within a very short period of time during election campaigns, creating a lot of problems for legitimate polling,” says Michael Traugott, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan, who previously served as president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).
Here’s what to know about the Wedgewood scandal, and what it says about polling ahead of the pivotal midterm elections.
What do we know about Wedgewood Polls?
The polling group called itself a “fictional entity run by a small group of industry veterans” in its statement. Its X account, which contained many of its polls, no longer exists.
G. Elliot Morris, a pollster and journalist who works at FiftyPlusOne, tells TIME that he and his colleagues had been suspicious about a “crop of new polling firms” that have emerged and released anonymous data. An individual eventually tipped off FiftyPlusOne to Wedgwood's polling, which was “the straw that broke the camel's back for us,” he says.
FiftyPlusOne said in a public statement that Wedgewood “operated as if it were a legitimate polling firm” by collecting money from donors to carry out crowd-funded polls and share its survey data.
The poll analysis group said Wedgewood disclosed two names in connection to the company: Jack Sims and Andrew Prater. According to FiftyPlusOne, Sims had prior experience in the polling industry. SoCal Strategies, another polling firm, this week acknowledged in an email to an NPR affiliate in Michigan that Sims had worked there, but is not currently employed by the company and “has not been for a year.”
“It is not atypical for a pollster to leave an existing firm, form their own, and self-fund some surveys to build reputation; we had no reason at the time to believe this case was any different,” FiftyPlusOne said regarding Sims.
“This event does not help what is a decades-long trend of declining confidence in the polling industry,” Morris added, when asked about Sims’ involvement with Wedgewood. TIME has been unable to reach Sims for comment.
Senate candidate in Michigan says fake polling damaged her campaign
The polling scandal has sparked a flurry of reactions within the politics and government sector, with one former Senate hopeful claiming the numbers circulated by Wedgewood contributed to the collapse of her campaign.
Democratic Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow recalled how a poll from Wedgewood had shown her “plummeting into single digits.”
Wedgewood released polling on June 29 that placed McMorrow as having the support of only 9% of registered voters, leaving her trailing behind Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed. Other polls also showed McMorrow in third place with single digits. A Susquehanna Polling survey conducted June 9 to 14 put McMorrow at 9%, although 49% of Democratic primary voters surveyed were undecided. A July 1 Quantus Insights poll put her at under 8%. McMorrow suspended her campaign on July 5, just one month before the primaries.
In a statement posted to social media on Oct. 20, McMorrow said donations “dried up” and she was “hounded” with calls to exit the race after the circulation of the “infamous” Wedgewood poll numbers.
Advising others not to trust the polls, McMorrow said she hoped Democrats are ready to “blow up the system with campaign finance and transparency reforms.”
Jennifer Holdsworth, a Democratic strategist who ran a SuperPAC that supported McMorrow, claimed the fake poll had been “used by several donors to pull back funding at a time we were being outspent by $80 million.”
Amid widespread discussions over fabricated data, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr said, without naming any specific instance, that there has been a “significant surge” in fake polls and blamed news outlets for “amplifying or airing” them “without regard to basic journalistic ethics.”
Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez quipped back and shifted the onus onto fraudulent pollsters themselves.
“Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong,” she said in response to Carr. “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”
What impact can polls have on elections?
While documented fake polls are rare, according to experts, polling in general often plays a large role in shaping the narrative of hotly contested races.
Traugott tells TIME that polls can affect voting behavior and support for campaigns “because by and large, the average citizen is interested in backing the winner, and backing means not just votes; it also means financial contributions, contributing time and effort to the campaign, and the like.”
Research has demonstrated what is known as the “bandwagon effect,” in which voters become more likely to vote for candidates or issues that are more favored in polls. A 2023 study from the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties showed that polls discouraged support for less popular ballot items, or as the paper’s authors put it: “polls demobilize the minority and mobilize the majority.”
It also found that moderate voters, who often represent a crucial demographic of voters and can swing tight elections, were the most impressionable when it comes to being influenced by polling. “Social conformity is strongest among ideological moderates,” the study said.
This effect has been documented going back decades.
A 1996 experiment showed that participants who were shown a fabricated poll ahead of that year’s primary had a “significantly greater tendency” to vote for the candidates favored by the poll.
This phenomenon has similarly been demonstrated in prediction markets, which have been shown to sway voters almost as much as polls. A study released on Oct 20 by policy think-tank the Brennan Center showed that voters were 10% more likely to say that a candidate would win in an election if that person had higher odds of winning based on a prediction market.
Likewise, voters were less likely to believe that a candidate would win if their odds were predicted to be lower. These prediction market odds, the study said, had a similar effect on perceived electability as traditional polls.
Traugott says that generally speaking, voters who identify with a specific party are unlikely to change their vote as a result of polling, but that they might not show up to the polls at all if they see their party’s nominee is disfavored to win.
“It's often the case in the general election that the polls have an influence in terms of turnout,” he says.
Should you trust polls?
Michael Dimock, the president of the Pew Research Center, says that in tight races, of which there are many in the upcoming midterms, “it's very easy for polls to ‘pick the wrong winner.’”
“I do think that people should be very cautious in over-interpreting pre-election polls' ability to project an election outcome, whether it's at a national level, state level, a district level, [or] local level,” he tells TIME.
One of the main reasons for this, Dimock contends, is that even if participants in a survey say who they would vote for, they still might not show up to cast their ballot. He refers to this immeasurable but important factor as “enthusiasm differences.”
“What polls are really bad at capturing is who's going to actually show up and cast a ballot. It's really hard,” Dimock adds. “Human beings are bad at predicting their [own] future behaviors.”