By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A polling organization whose surveys influenced political coverage across several states admitted Tuesday, Oct. 20, that it fabricated its election data throughout the 2026 campaign season, describing the operation as a social experiment intended to expose weaknesses in the polling industry.
Wedgewood Polls made the admission after election analysis website FiftyPlusOne investigated irregularities in its survey data and requested an explanation. The organization had released at least 18 polls involving congressional, gubernatorial and primary elections, with its findings incorporated into polling averages and cited by national news organizations.
The disclosure has raised questions about how survey results are verified before being included in election forecasts, political reporting and campaign discussions. It has also prompted complaints from candidates whose political prospects were portrayed inaccurately by Wedgewood’s invented figures.
In its statement posted to X, Wedgewood described itself as “an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry.”
The organization said its objective was to determine whether fabricated surveys could gain acceptance without independently verifiable research.
“We wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutiny exists in media and public commentary? The short answer: Far too easy.”
Wedgewood claimed that its operators had experience in polling and research before launching the project. However, the organization acknowledged that most of the survey results it published were not based on legitimate data collection.
The admission followed an investigation by FiftyPlusOne, whose researchers examined raw survey data associated with Wedgewood’s Mississippi Senate poll. Investigators identified discrepancies that called into question whether the reported interviews had occurred as described.
FiftyPlusOne had previously examined Wedgewood’s stated methodology and sought information about its operators. The investigators said they had received names and independently confirmed that one individual had prior polling-industry experience, giving the organization an appearance of legitimacy.
As concerns about the data increased, researchers requested additional information from Wedgewood. Instead of resolving the discrepancies, the organization published its admission.
The investigation demonstrated that the problem was not simply the absence of background checks. Even an organization that supplied a plausible methodology and information about its operators could distribute fabricated results.
Wedgewood subsequently accused polling aggregators and media outlets of accepting its surveys without sufficient scrutiny.
“Despite having no history, formal credentials, or real data behind the vast majority of our releases, Wedgewood Polling was added to major polling aggregators, and repeatedly treated as a legitimate data source,” the statement said.
“Our fabricated numbers were given instant credibility across national media platforms — including being cited on air and in reporting by outlets such as MS NOW. The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation.”
The organization’s surveys appeared in polling databases operated by FiftyPlusOne, Decision Desk HQ, The New York Times and other election-analysis services. News organizations also used Wedgewood’s findings in reporting about competitive political contests.
Following the admission, Decision Desk HQ removed 17 Wedgewood surveys from its race-level polling lists and averages. The New York Times also removed the firm’s results from its polling tracker and added an editor’s note explaining that Wedgewood had acknowledged fabricating data.
The consequences extended beyond the organizations that published the numbers.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who withdrew from the Democratic U.S. Senate primary on July 5, said one of Wedgewood’s fabricated polls contributed to a collapse in confidence surrounding her campaign.
The late-June survey placed McMorrow at approximately 9% support in a three-way Democratic contest involving Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens. McMorrow said the result contradicted her campaign’s internal polling but nevertheless affected donors, volunteers and media coverage.
In a statement published on X, McMorrow described the personal and organizational consequences of the fabricated results.
“As one of the candidates featured in these polls — the infamous one in late June that showed me plummeting into single digits (which was at odds with our internals) — here’s the impact of this ‘experiment’: Donations dried up. Volunteers were devastated and pleading for guidance on what to do. Reporters hounded me with calls to drop out,” she wrote.
“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. Our volunteers gave their all. And then some. I felt like I had let so many of them down.”
McMorrow’s account illustrates how polling results can affect campaigns beyond their influence on public perceptions. Candidates rely on fundraising, volunteer participation and media coverage, all of which can be influenced by reports suggesting that a campaign is gaining or losing support.
However, the extent to which the fabricated survey independently caused her withdrawal has not been established. Campaign decisions typically involve multiple considerations, including finances, internal research and assessments of the remaining electoral path.
Wedgewood’s surveys were not limited to Michigan. Its published polling included elections in Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio and Texas.
In Mississippi, one fabricated survey portrayed the U.S. Senate contest between Democratic candidate Scott Colom and Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith as tied. The result attracted attention because it suggested an unexpectedly competitive race in a state that has generally favored Republicans in federal elections.
The Colom campaign cited the poll alongside other surveys in discussions about its prospects. News coverage subsequently amplified the figures before Wedgewood acknowledged that the data had been invented.
Similar questions now surround the firm’s other surveys, which may have influenced public discussions even when they did not determine campaign decisions.
Wedgewood’s admission is the second prominent disclosure this year involving fabricated election polling presented as a social experiment.
In August, a previously unknown organization called Median Strategies acknowledged publishing false surveys involving the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary, Nevada’s governor’s race and the Los Angeles mayoral contest.
The operation was run by Rahil Prakash, a 21-year-old college graduate who described the project as an experiment examining how easily fabricated political information could spread.
Some of the false results circulated through political accounts and news coverage, although several major polling aggregators declined to include them because of concerns about their methodology and transparency.
The two incidents highlight differences in how organizations evaluate polling submissions. Median Strategies encountered resistance from several established trackers, while Wedgewood’s results were accepted more widely before investigators examined the underlying data.
The disclosures also come amid broader debates about the reliability of political polling following errors in several recent election cycles.
National and state surveys have sometimes underestimated support for President Donald Trump, particularly in 2016 and 2020. Polling organizations have responded by changing sampling practices, weighting procedures and methods for reaching voters who are less likely to participate in surveys.
Those methodological difficulties are distinct from deliberate fabrication. A legitimate survey can produce an inaccurate estimate because of sampling error, turnout assumptions or nonresponse bias; fabricated polling presents invented numbers as observations that were never collected.
The Wedgewood case raises questions about whether polling organizations and news outlets should demand stronger verification of survey methods, respondent information and underlying datasets before presenting results as credible evidence of voter preferences.
Additional scrutiny may be particularly important for newly established polling companies without independently documented research histories.
With the Nov. 3 midterm elections approaching, Wedgewood’s admission has forced polling aggregators to remove its surveys and reconsider the safeguards used to identify unreliable data.
The organization maintains that its purpose was to encourage industry reform, but candidates affected by its publications have challenged the justification for releasing fabricated results during actual elections.
The controversy now centers on accountability for the false information, the standards used by polling aggregators and whether additional safeguards can prevent invented survey data from influencing future campaigns.
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