Fake polling has affected the 2026 midterms.

 

Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow says she dropped out of the Senate race due to a fake poll. Politico/AP.

A polling outfit has admitted that its polls were faked, throwing doubt into the 2026 midterms. Politico. Wedgewood Polls said that they were doing an "experimental project" to show that an "entirely fabricated" polling firm could sway public opinion. There is evidence that these polls had an effect, as they were cited by outlets like New York Times and Politico. Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow claimed on X that the fake polls directly affected the Senate race in the state. After the poll showed she was down to single digit support, funding dried up, and Mallory said the poll "killed us". It is unclear what Wedgewood was attempting to accomplish. 

Just before this poll hit, the Mitchell poll that also showed me in single digits hit. That poll was bullshit - and our team proved it. It was an open SurveyMonkey link that people were able to send around to friends and take multiple times. We expended a lot of capital (and took a serious risk) - calling it out as bullshit. MIRS ultimately declined to publish it because of shoddy methodology. But then this one hit immediately after. It was a one-two punch. Then all of the sudden it was a pattern - and people believed it had to be true. It killed us. These were some of the absolute worst days on the campaign. Especially for my team. There are no words to explain the morale blow, and nothing I could do or say to my team to fix it. Just an excruciating, nauseating blow. By that point, we took a risk and we spend our money. We put our ads up. They were working. But the damage was done. And I was drowned out by outside spending and the narrative that we had completely collapsed.

— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) October 21, 2026

My Comment:

The 2026 election remains one of the most difficult to predict and the fake polling is a major reason why. And this isn't even the first time this happened this cycle! There was another fake outlet that was propping up Francesca Hong in Wisconsin, earlier in the year. Given that polls are already unreliable and have underestimated Republicans dramatically in previous years, I wouldn't be surprised if the "blue wave" ends up a blue trickle at best and a GOP trifecta at worst. 

Regardless though, this fake polling is obvious really bad. If McMorrow is right and her funding dried up due to bad polling that had little basis in reality, that's not a good thing. She might have lost anyways, but she didn't get a fair shot. I don't have a dog in that race, I generally consider all Democrat candidates to be equally bad, but it's bad for the Republic if fake polls are deciding who gets elected and not the voters themselves. 

There is a lot of speculation as to why these polling firms have been faking their data like this. It's not an issue of them being lazy, they are doing this on purpose. Democrats are saying this could be some kind of pied piper strategy to boost progressive candidates which will be easier to beat in November. I don't think Republicans are that stupid or that smart.

My guess is that both cases were out and out scams. It wasn't a social experiment, it was an effort to rig the prediction markets. Prediction markets are legalized gambling and bets can be placed on anything. My guess is that these polls were trying to shape the outcome of races so they could place bets on the outcome and make easy money. Indeed, they wouldn't even have to vote on the outcomes, they could just vote on the polling average, while their own polls could skew them. It's a pretty good scam and I wouldn't be surprised if that is what this is about. 

It's another reason why I am getting more and more opposed to online gambling and prediction markets. Letting folks bet on everything from their living room is bad enough, but with these prediction markets out there, there is now an incentive to fudge reality until you get the outcome you want. It's not just sports, where there are now constant rumors of play being disrupted, but our very elections. 

I am not one to call for regulations, but honestly, these fake polling firms are pretty much begging for them. They are effecting the outcomes of elections and that's not acceptable. Regardless of the motivations, putting out fake polls is a bad thing. And while they are regulating things, they should regulate prediction markets as well, or, better yet, ban them entirely.