Fake Poll Showing L.A. Mayor Bass With Wide Lead Was ‘Social Experiment,’ Shuttered Company Claims

A poll purporting to show Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading City Council member Nithya Raman by nearly 12 percentage points in the city’s upcoming mayoral runoff was fabricated, the company behind it acknowledged Monday.The fake poll, purportedly conducted by a company called Median Strategies, claimed to be based on a survey of 560 Los Angeles voters conducted between July 30 and August 5, with a 4.1 percent margin of error. It showed Ms. Bass leading Ms. Raman ahead of the November 3 runoff election. Among its more eyebrow-raising claims: that 16 percent of respondents said they had voted for Spencer Pratt — the former reality TV star who ran in the mayoral primary — and that 85 percent of those voters planned to back Ms. Bass in the general election, with just 7 percent supporting Ms. Raman.But it was all part of a game. “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,” the company said in a post on its website. “We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.”The company also said on its website that “all previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.”With the advent of gambling on elections, the website also said, “No individual involved held or traded any position in an election prediction market, betting market, or other financial instrument tied to the races covered by Median Strategies. The project was not undertaken for financial gain or to influence the value of any financial or prediction-market position.”Still, the company went to great lengths to present the poll as authentic, even publishing analysis alongside the fabricated data. “Faced with a choice between the incumbent and a Democratic Socialists of America-aligned challenger, most Pratt voters appear to be treating Bass as the more familiar, more moderate option rather than sitting out the race,” Median Strategies wrote. That framing was enough to prompt the California Post, a new enterprise affiliated with the New York Post, to run a headline declaring that “Spencer Pratt’s voters could be deciding factor in LA mayor showdown according to latest poll.”Ms. Bass amplified the bogus poll results before the deception came to light. Her campaign account posted on X: “Doing the work, showing up, and gaining momentum. Let’s do this, LA!” — citing Median Strategies as the source. The post has since been deleted.After the poll was exposed, a Bass campaign spokesperson told KTLA, “This poll was reported on by multiple news outlets. Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”Ms. Raman’s camp was less forgiving of Ms. Bass’s role in spreading the false information. “The mayor’s campaign promoted a fake poll without properly vetting the source,” a Raman campaign spokesman told KTLA. “Angelenos deserve a mayor who gets the facts right, communicates clearly, and does the work before announcing the result,” the spokesman said.Median Strategies has only one email address on its page, and efforts to contact the company through it brought no response. The company had only around 20 followers on social media when it began posting on August 9. It previously released a poll on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race showing Democratic socialist Francesca Hong leading by more than 20 points — a race she ultimately lost. “We got Wisconsin wrong — and by quite a margin too,” the firm posted on August 12. The following day, it released the LA mayoral poll.

Fake Poll Showing L.A. Mayor Bass With Wide Lead Was ‘Social Experiment,’ Shuttered Company Claims

Fake Poll Showing L.A. Mayor Bass With Wide Lead Was ‘Social Experiment,’ Shuttered Company Claims

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