A polling firm that manufactured socialist-friendly data for two major races admitted the numbers were fake, called the whole operation a "social experiment," and shut down — leaving the politicians and press who amplified the bogus figures walking away clean.
Median Strategies released polls showing Democratic Socialists of America member Francesca Hong leading her Wisconsin gubernatorial primary by over 20 points. Hong lost by less than one percent on August 11. The firm also claimed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass held a nearly 12-point lead over City Councilwoman Nithya Raman, with a suspicious 16% of respondents supposedly voting for reality TV personality Spencer Pratt — a Republican who had already been eliminated from the race in June.
When pressed by the Los Angeles Times, Median Strategies folded. "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," the company announced. All previously published data has been withdrawn and "should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data."
The experiment worked exactly as designed. Bass cited the fake data in a now-deleted X post, declaring she was "doing the work, showing up, and gaining momentum." Only after the firm's admission did Bass call for a criminal investigation, with a spokesperson stating that "any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" — a rich posture from a mayor who boosted unverified numbers to her own benefit.
Raman's campaign wasn't buying it. Spokesperson Liz Garcia called it "the latest example of an administration that too often struggles to get the basics right — from posting about a pothole repair before the pothole was fixed to repeatedly giving Boyle Heights residents a Lineage cleanup deadline that the company now disputes."
Breitbart noted that Median Strategies told the Los Angeles Times it was "not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews" — a convenient exit for whoever orchestrated the operation. The Daily Caller reported that professional pollsters attempted to explain away the Wisconsin miss by citing open primary dynamics and enthusiasm gaps among Hong supporters, rather than questioning whether the data itself was legitimate from the start.
That's the tell. The polling ecosystem has no verification standards and no accountability mechanisms. A firm materialized from nowhere, injected fabricated data favoring leftist candidates into the political bloodstream, watched politicians and media amplify it uncritically, and then walked away with a press release. The people who used the fake numbers face no scrutiny. The firm's operators remain anonymous.
The next "social experiment" is already being planned somewhere. The only question is whether anyone in the press will bother verifying the numbers before they spread them next time.
