Overview
- Wedgewood posted a statement late Tuesday that nearly all its polls published since June were invented and that only a crowdfunded Nebraska survey was real, prompting major outlets and aggregators to remove its entries from averages and pages.
- The firm framed the operation as a social experiment meant to show how easily a new pollster can gain traction, while critics and some campaigns call the action fraudulent and say the explanation came after investigators closed in.
- The polling site FiftyPlusOne says it spotted inconsistencies in Wedgewood’s raw data, prepared an exposé and contacted the group the same day that Wedgewood acknowledged the fabrications.
- Candidates and strategists say Wedgewood’s false numbers changed fundraising and media narratives this summer, with Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow saying a June Wedgewood poll helped trigger a fall in donations that led her to suspend her Senate run.
- The episode follows an earlier 2026 fake-poll case and has sharpened calls for reforms because aggregators often accept pollster methodology statements without full outside verification, raising risks that low-cost or bad actors can distort campaigns and markets.