{"id":2691340,"date":"2026-10-25T14:30:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T18:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-is-this-legal-pollster-boosting-dem-in-mississippi-admits-it-fabricated-most-election-surveys\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T14:30:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T18:30:02","slug":"how-is-this-legal-pollster-boosting-dem-in-mississippi-admits-it-fabricated-most-election-surveys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-is-this-legal-pollster-boosting-dem-in-mississippi-admits-it-fabricated-most-election-surveys\/","title":{"rendered":"How Is This Legal? Pollster Boosting Dem in Mississippi Admits It Fabricated Most Election Surveys"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-is-this-legal-pollster-boosting-dem-in-mississippi-admits-it-fabricated-most-election-surveys%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2691340&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p>A polling organization admitted to fabricating most of its polling Wednesday after suggesting that Democratic Mississippi Senate nominee Scott Colom was only four points behind his Republican opponent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Wedgewood Polls said in a statement that the surveys were part of an \u201cexperimental project\u201d to expose how easily a fabricated polling firm could mislead the public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The organization posted a <a class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WedgewoodPolls\/status\/2110541168874488272\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">poll<\/a> on Oct. 14 claiming that Colom trailed Republican Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by a 52% to 48% margin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">\u201cWedgewood Polling, an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry, makes this public statement. Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public\u2019s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified, low-quality methodology,\u201d the organization said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">\u201cWe wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The organization generated most of its data to test whether media outlets, aggregators and commentators would report on it without verifying the source or methodology, according to the statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">They conducted one legitimate poll regarding the Nebraska Senate race.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">FiftyPlusOne <a class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.fiftyplusone.news\/p\/fiftyplusone-just-caught-a-pollster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">contacted<\/a> Wedgewood Polls Tuesday after finding evidence that the organization fabricated its polling data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Researchers obtained Wedgewood\u2019s raw data from a Mississippi Senate survey and compared its respondent identifiers with genuine records from Pollfish, the platform Wedgewood claimed to use.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">They found that the identifier and transaction timestamps displayed patterns incompatible with authentic interviews.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Wedgewood Polling confessed to the fabrications after FiftyPlusOne\u2019s contacted them about their findings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Median Strategies admitted it fabricated its polling data, with one poll indicating that former Democratic Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong led her then-opponent David Crowley by over 20 points. Hong lost the race by less than 1% in the Aug. 11 primary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">The Senate Majority PAC, the top campaign spending arm for Senate Democrats, planned to spend $1.2 million to support Colom in Mississippi after polls showed Hyde-Smith leading by single digits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__paragraph\">Other <a class=\"LexicalEditorTheme__link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/polls\/mississippi-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">polls<\/a> by Data for Progress and Impact Research found Hyde-Smith leading by single digits, indicating the race was closer than usual.<\/p>\n<div class=\"disclaimer\">\n<p>All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. 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Wedgewood Polls said in a statement that the surveys were part of an \u201cexperimental project\u201d to expose how easily a fabricated polling firm could mislead the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2691341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4675.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2691340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_4675.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2691341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}