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Pollster Admits Fabricating Surveys to Expose Industry Flaws

5 sources · updated 2026-10-22
Left 20% Center 0% Right 80%
1 left · 0 center · 4 right

What happened

Wedgewood Polls, a previously unknown U.S. election survey firm that began publishing in June from a Google Sites page registered that month with no listed employees, phone number or location, admitted in a Tuesday statement on X that it had fabricated its numbers. The firm said the project was a "social experiment" and "wake-up call" meant "to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry," after the analysis site FiftyPlusOne obtained claimed raw data for its Mississippi Senate survey, found discrepancies, and asked for comment. Outlets including Newsweek, The Hill, Breitbart, the Daily Beast and the Washington Examiner had reproduced the surveys, and the New York Times, Nate Silver, VoteHub, FiftyPlusOne and Decision Desk HQ had included them in databases or averages; Decision Desk HQ then removed 17 polls and the Times removed all of them from its tracking project. Michigan Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who left a U.S. Senate primary on July 5, said Wedgewood figures showing her support plunging dried up donations, left volunteers "devastated," and led reporters to hound her to drop out.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 5 articles

2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 2 of 2
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Wedgewood Polls, Wedgewood Polling and Mallory McMorrow
Primary evidence · cites a document or data 0 of 2
Primary evidence means the article cites a record you could check yourself: a court filing or ruling, a dataset or report, a recording or transcript, an official statement or press release, market data. A quote is not a document. The count is how many articles cite one. Here: None cited.
Credits another outlet 0 of 2
The article says the story comes from another outlet's reporting (“first reported by Reuters”). Those articles relay the story; they are not independent confirmation. Here: Each article presents its own reporting.
Unnamed sources 0 of 2
The main claim is attributed to people who are not identified: “people familiar with the matter”, “officials said”. The count is how many articles do this.
How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Oct 21, 15:26 UTC by Fox News, naming its source.
Not counted 3
Opinion, analysis and video pieces, and articles too short to assess. Every count above is out of the counted articles. An article republished under a new headline is one article.
This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Left-leaning coverage treats Wedgewood's experiment story as the explanation for the fake surveys, while right-leaning coverage treats it as an excuse after they were caught. Both sides describe the firm posting its statement after FiftyPlusOne confronted it with its findings. Fox News quotes the site's co-founder saying the operators are trying to "cover up their fraud," a charge the Guardian does not carry. Right-leaning coverage leads with Democrats angry that the surveys boosted far-left primary candidates and with operatives calling the episode fraud. Left-leaning coverage leads with weak industry oversight and records that conservative outlets also published the same figures. None of the coverage establishes whether anyone named as a Wedgewood operator will face a fraud inquiry for taking donor money for surveys never conducted.
Bottom line

Fox News ran FiftyPlusOne's charge that Wedgewood's experiment story was a cover-up; the Guardian printed that story as the explanation and never carried the rebuttal.

The receipts — 3 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Wedgewood created a GoFundMe for Nebraska races that raised $500 of a $5,000 goal numberin Fox News · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Breitbart and the Washington Examiner reproduced Wedgewood's surveys contextin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Wedgewood's first poll, of a Louisiana Republican primary runoff, was reported as wildly wrong contextin The Guardian · absent from right-leaning coverage
The Left View
The Guardian frames the admission as evidence that unverified figures were given "instant credibility across national media platforms," which Wedgewood called a "systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation." It highlights McMorrow’s argument that although "a point was proven" that "Polling is broken," the episode treated a year-and-a-half of volunteer and donor effort "like a game," and that media "who loves to ride the drama of a pollercoaster" must examine "what’s legitimate and what’s not." The paper also notes a parallel August case in which Median Strategies published fake polls in Wisconsin, Nevada and California as a "short-term social experiment"; operator Rahil Prakash told the Guardian he wanted to see if fake polls "could really penetrate the ecosystem that easily," adding, "And as it turned out, it could."
The Right View
Fox News, the Daily Wire and the New York Post frame the episode as fabricated surveys that boosted far-left Democratic primary candidates rather than a good-faith test. Fox reports Democrats are "up in arms," notes the numbers were cited by Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan campaign and showed Francesca Hong with an edge in Wisconsin, and quotes former Harris adviser Mike Nellis calling those responsible "absolute scumbags" who "lied about their polling data, got caught, and are freaking out because they’ve committed fraud," adding they "should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." FiftyPlusOne co-founder G. Elliott Morris wrote the firm was "trying to cover up their fraud with the ‘we were doing a social experiment’ excuse," and former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor called the conduct "lying and fraud." The Daily Wire and Post argue the polls favored Democrats and Democratic Socialists rather than being randomly wrong, that McMorrow’s fundraising collapse shows real harm, and that the experiment claim arrived only after the firm was caught; the Post states only one of 17 published polls was real and that Nate Silver’s model became "a bit more favorable to Republicans" once the fakes were removed.
Our Take (balanced)
Left-leaning coverage’s strongest argument is that a brand-new firm with no public staff was absorbed into the New York Times, Decision Desk HQ and other averages, which both Wedgewood and McMorrow treat as proof that media and aggregators failed to vet data. Right-leaning coverage’s strongest argument is that the fabricated results disproportionately elevated progressive candidates such as El-Sayed and Hong, were cited by campaigns and donors, and were labeled an experiment only after FiftyPlusOne confronted the firm with evidence—conduct Morris described as a cover-up and Nellis as fraud. The central unresolved tension is whether the operation should be defined by its stated purpose of exposing weak polling standards, or by the timing of that claim and the pattern of whom the fake numbers helped.

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