Inside the Fake Polling Firm Delivering Fake Data Blindly Accepted by the Media

Voting booths on October 22, 2018 in Tampa, Florida. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

The Los Angeles Times has a revealing report about a polling firm that isn’t. Reporter Noah Goldberg exposes that an alleged pollster, called Median Strategies, admitted that its data regarding races in the Los Angeles mayoral race and Wisconsin’s election for governor had been fabricated. When contacted by Goldberg on the matter, the company delivered a bizarre explanation.

Median had done what appeared to be a standard poll, with the kind of metrics commonly involved that have the political wonk class salivating. In Los Angeles just over 500 alleged respondents were polled, with a 4.1% margin of error. The “research” showed incumbent Karen Bass with a sizeable double-digit lead, and crosstab measures showed voters of former candidate Spencer Pratt supporting Bass by a wide margin.

The data was less reputable than any found in a middle school science fair. When contacted by the Times, Median fessed up that it had completely fabricated the numbers. Details provided by the company make for a confounding excuse.

Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the company said in an email to The Times. “We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.”

This “I meant to do that” comment does little to explain what and why this took place, but it serves as a harsh critique of those who used the data. The California Post covered Median’s figures in a report, and a number of local news channels in the region also repeated the numbers. The Bass campaign had also cited the poll in a post, but then later took that down – and blamed it on the Post. “This poll was reported on by a news outlet.”

To see outlets bringing up the poll means resorting to polling made by a company that was never vetted. Median had no track record of polling work, yet the California Post forged ahead with their numbers. The link to the original article now redirects to a New York Post piece on the false polling firm, though the URL still sports the original headline.

Median Strategies also had put out figures on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. It showed DSA candidate Francesca Hong leading by more than 20 points. Hong went on to lose a nail-biter of an election, leaving many in the press questioning polling results. But in this instance, Median cannot be held fully accountable.

Many pollsters had similar, and even more audacious returns favoring Hong. For these esteemed polling companies to put out data that was in line with a fraudulent company is as big a condemnation of their work as you might find. It took the Los Angeles Times to ferret out the details on this ersatz pollster, albeit doing so after the fact.

Now questions abound about possible election tampering taking place. The whole issue with polls being a corrupted enterprise is seen in a quote in the new New York Post coverage. Citing a “veteran political consultant”, who was commenting on this Median Strategies fabrication, this expert delivers an oblivious excusal about the poll: “There would have been no reason for anyone to have doubted it.”

Full disclosure, I am not a veteran polling expert, but as far as finding a reason, how about the lack of a resume for the company behind the poll? Median Strategies had no track record of work before its published results; there was not even a prior record of the company existing. Its first public notice of any kind was a post on Xitter, made on August 9.

What is evident is that in election seasons, polling data is irresistible for many. The numbers are like catnip for those in the political realm and the media. The conclusions they end up making are as sensible as that feline behavior seen after getting hopped up on the product.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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