How a fake pollster may have moved some 2026 elections
Wedgewood Polls admitted that it had made up its survey results. Some candidates say those faked numbers killed their campaigns.
Wedgewood Polls, a company that supplied polling data to campaigns, admitted on Tuesday night that it had been faking its polling numbers. The revelation sparked a controversy in the election world. The company, facing a forthcoming investigation, stated that it had been an "experimental project" to demonstrate how a "fabricated polling firm" could influence public opinion.
Several credible polling aggregators, including The New York Times and POLITICO's Morning Score, had included Wedgewood in their lists. However, the motive behind Wedgewood's actions remains unclear. Some speculate that the company was trying to support progressive Democrats in primaries, while others wonder if it was used to manipulate betting markets or sway spending decisions.
The company's account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is no longer active, and previous PDFs of the polls tied to the account are no longer available online. Regardless of the company's intentions, the incident has raised concerns about the potential for fake polling data to impact election outcomes.
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