A purported polling firm has shut down after revealing that it was just a “social experiment.”
Median Strategies, which used to call itself an “independent research firm,” revealed its polling was bogus after releasing surveys showing that Democratic candidates Karen Bass in Los Angeles and Francesca Hong in Wisconsin were ahead in their respective mayoral and gubernatorial races.
One fake poll released by Median Strategies showed Bass leading her opponent Nithya Raman by nearly 12 points. It claimed that the results were based on a survey of 560 voters conducted between July 30 and Aug. 5, with a 4.1 percent margin of error, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Bass touted the phony survey results in a now-deleted X post. A campaign spokesperson told the newspaper, “This poll was reported on by a news outlet. Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Another poll on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race showed Hong, a Democratic socialist, up by more than 20 points. She narrowly lost to David Crowley last week, forcing Median Strategies to admit that “we got Wisconsin wrong- and by quite a margin too.”
But the company has since dropped all pretense of credibility.
“Median Strategies has concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls,” its website reads. “All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.”
“Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” it added.
The fake firm began posting on social media on Aug. 9 and only had about 20 followers, the L.A. Times reported.
“Polling has a credibility problem,” an archived version of its homepage stated. “Median Strategies is independent by design, not just by claim, with no partisan clients, no partisan money, and no partisan conclusions.”
A section headlined “How We Poll” explained, “Every Median Strategies release is built on a documented sampling frame, a mixed-mode interview process, and a transparent weighting scheme. We publish our methodology alongside every release so you can evaluate our numbers the same way we do.”
But the company never responded to repeated requests for an interview with its head of polling, according to L.A. Times’ city hall reporter Noah Goldberg.
The notice on the Median Strategies website states that no individual involved in the experiment received any compensation or financial benefit, and no one held or traded any position in a betting market.
“The project was not funded, commissioned, or directed by any candidate, campaign, political party, PAC, media organization, or other outside entity,” it said. “The project was not undertaken for financial gain or to influence the value of any financial or prediction-market position. Thank you for your understanding.”
