Wedgewood Polls admits using fabricated data in the US — The Guardian

US company Wedgewood Polls has admitted that it used fabricated data in pre-election polls that were distributed by national US media outlets. The firm called it a social experiment intended to demonstrate insufficient data verification in the political polling industry, The Guardian reports.

Wedgewood Polls published its statement on social network X after the election analysis website FiftyPlusOne contacted the company with questions about its investigation into the firm's polls. The company said it sought to show the industry's vulnerability, the lack of proper oversight and the low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry.

Polls made it into media outlets and databases

According to Wedgewood Polls, the fabricated figures quickly gained the trust of national media platforms and became part of political narratives. Its polls were published by Newsweek, The Hill, Breitbart, The Daily Beast and Washington Examiner. The results were also included in polling databases run by The New York Times, Nate Silver, VoteHub and FiftyPlusOne.

After the company's admission, Decision Desk HQ said it had removed 17 Wedgewood Polls surveys from its lists and averages for election races. In an editor's note, The New York Times said it had removed all of the firm's polls from its polling tracker project.

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Doubts about the company's work had emerged earlier

Wedgewood Polls appeared in June, presenting itself as an independent research company. As early as July 10, a Washington Monthly columnist called its first poll on the runoff in Louisiana's Republican primary "extremely flawed."

In August, Straight Arrow News noted that the Wedgewood Polls website, hosted on Google Sites, did not contain the names of employees, a telephone number or location details. FiftyPlusOne researchers later obtained the raw data from the company's latest poll on the Mississippi Senate election, which Wedgewood said had been conducted through the Pollfish platform. They said they found discrepancies in the data and then contacted the company.

Michigan state Senator and Democrat Mallory McMorrow, who withdrew from the race for a US Senate seat on July 5, said Wedgewood Polls' figures showed a sharp decline in her support. According to her, donations declined afterward, volunteers were "devastated," and journalists pressed her to end her campaign.