Fake Poll Fooled a Mayor. It Was All a 'Social Experiment.'

NEW YORK (AP) — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said a new poll showed her campaign was "gaining momentum." Days later, the poll was exposed as a fake. The survey was one of at least three bogus polls posted online this month by Median Strategies, a previously unknown company. On Monday, the firm admitted to the Los Angeles Times that the results were fabricated. Before deleting its website, the company said it was "a short-term social experiment" to see how fake polling data could spread without being checked. It did not say who ran the experiment or why. The incident is a warning about the dangers of trusting unvetted polls. Good independent polls exist, but they are surrounded by surveys from campaigns, outside groups, or firms with unclear methods. It can be hard to tell what is real. "This is much bigger than one fake poll," said Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster. "It's never been easier to make invented numbers look legitimate." The fake polls claimed to measure races in Wisconsin, Nevada, and Los Angeles. None appeared in AP coverage. The Los Angeles poll showed Bass leading councilmember Nithya Raman by 12 points. Bass's campaign shared it online, and the California Post covered it. The campaign has since deleted its post but said the poll "was reported on by multiple news outlets." "Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated," said Bass campaign spokesman Alex Stack. Major polling trackers, including The New York Times and FiftyPlusOne, did not include the fake polls. They said the surveys lacked basic details, such as who ran the firm. Median Strategies did not answer their questions. Will Davis of The New York Times said releasing such details is standard practice. "Because that information was not provided, we did not include it," he said. Mary Radcliffe of FiftyPlusOne noted her screening process is not perfect. "There is a universe where they could have come up with plausible answers," she said. "This is an industry built on trust." Fake polls are rare but not new. In 2010, the blog Daily Kos said a firm called Research 2000 had provided fraudulent polling data. The fake posts moved betting markets. After Bass shared the false numbers, the price of a "yes" contract on her winning the election rose on Kalshi. On Polymarket, about twenty accounts traded thousands of contracts in her favor shortly after the post. Median Strategies said before its website was taken down that no one involved had traded any position tied to the races. It remains unclear who created Median Strategies. The company's website was registered just over a week ago. No one responded to AP's questions. The firm's final statement said its polls "should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data." In its first post, the company wrote: "Polling has a credibility problem. Ours is the fix."