Poll showing Bass leading Raman by double digits was bogus, company says
a day ago by gAlienLifeform to c/news
Archived at https://archive.ph/Wk9ix
Was it even? Like to be totally clear I think everyone involved with this was/is fucking scum who did damage to everyone's faith in democracy and willingness to trust anything they read, but I really can't figure out their actual goal here. One of the people they showed winning was on the left and lost, another person they showed inflated numbers for was a centrist and ultimately got the most votes, so it's all over the map ideologically speaking.
My best guess at this point is that this was actually an attempt to manipulate betting markets and profit off of that, but this whole thing needs a bunch of subpoenas before we'll have any clue why they did this.
The one thing I will say with confidence at this point is that everyone involved in this was fucking scum and they need to be named and shamed so they can't ever abuse public trust like this again, so I hope there's more reporting on this.
It was to undermine Raman, the progressive, to push Bass as the centrist. It's part of a larger effort to cast progressive policies as unpopular. You can tell by the enormous (and obviously fake) margin they gave Bass.
Looks like it gets worse. They refuse to name the company directors, they've done the same thing in Wisconsin and Nevada, and they just shut down yesterday:
Median Strategies was a company which initially described itself as a pollster, and later as a "short term social experiment".[1][2] In August 2026, it released the purported results of public opinion polls for the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election and the 2026 gubernatorial elections in Wisconsin and Nevada, and then a few days later retracted all of its releases, stating "[a]ll previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data".[1][2][3]
The company acknowledged to reporters that the data was false, and following its admission, declared on August 17, 2026 that it was shutting down.[1][2] In a written statement, the company said "Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification",[1][2] but contemporaneous reporting did not indicate whether this sequence of events was the company's plan all along, or whether any survey research had ever been conducted by the company.
Even before the company's admission, several polling aggregators had refused to include Median Strategies' purported results because they were released without basic and standard information needed for vetting polls (like the identities of the firm's directors), and Median Strategies did not respond to requests for that information.[3] The entities responsible for Median Strategies remained unknown in the aftermath of the revelation.
Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification
I really hope the "It's just a prank bro" defense does not work
My best guess at this point is that this was actually an attempt to manipulate betting markets and profit off of that
This is legit the first place my mind went when reading the headline. This should open them up to lawsuits.
Public what?
Exactly
Cuts both ways though. It could have also discouraged voters further to the right from voting because it was a lost cause.
The left are generally willing to do stuff with less assurance of success. The right tend to not have imagination and don't like taking the chance of association with a loser. Liberals in particular among right wing ideologies are totally demoralized by not having already won.
without independent verification
By lying. Yes.
"It was just a social experiment!", said every douchebag in the early oughts (and even later), when they fucked around on social media and then found out.
Now they make phony polling companies but still make the same weak-sss, bullshit excuse.
"Not taking interviews."
I wonder if they actually think they are clever and tricked everyone? Could they really be that fucking stupid? Or just so fucking lazy that they couldn't be bothered to make up a better lie than, "It was just a prank, bro!"
Straight to jail
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AKA attempting to swing an election.
save