Overview
- Median Strategies acknowledged Monday that several polls it published were fabricated and described the project as a “short‑term social experiment” to see how unverified polling spreads.
- One bogus release claimed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass led Nithya Raman by about 12 points; the Bass campaign posted the result on social media, deleted it after the admission, and has called for an investigation.
- The group also circulated a fake Wisconsin survey that showed Francesca Hong with a large lead before she narrowly lost the Democratic primary.
- The releases included typical methodology details but failed to supply verifiable information about sampling, vendors, or ownership, so major polling aggregators excluded the data.
- Who ran Median Strategies and why remains unknown, experts say the episode shows how low‑transparency polls can ripple into prediction markets and news coverage and has prompted calls for stronger vetting and possible probes.