We recently saw a poll about the Los Angeles mayor's race going viral, showing the incumbent, the incompetent Karen Bass leading her opponent, Nithya Raman, but almost 12 points. The Bass camp finish doing handsprings over the news just in time to find out that the poll was a fake.
As if pollsters' reputations weren't bad enough already. But here's the catch. This work wasn't done by an actual polling firm.
A poll claiming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was leading Council member Nithya Raman by a wide margin — and picking up support from most voters who supported Spencer Pratt in the mayoral primary — was bogus, the company behind the poll acknowledged Monday.
The fake poll by Median Strategies showed Bass leading Raman by nearly 12 percentage points ahead of the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff, and said the results were based on a survey of 560 Los Angeles voters between July 30 and Aug. 5. It said it had a 4.1% margin of error.
So, it was a fake poll that had the Bass people doing cartwheels.
But Monday, in response to repeated inquiries from The Times, the company said the purported “poll” was nothing of the kind.
“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 an email to The Times. “We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.”
Whoops.
Another report claims the Bass camp is calling for Median Strategies and possibly other outlets that reported the poll as straight news to be prosecuted.
“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,” according to a statement from Bass’ campaign.
What Meridian Strategies did here probably doesn't constitute something they can be prosecuted for. They are describing it now as an experiment, and if the experimental goal was to make Karen Bass and her campaign all dance a buck-and-wing, they probably succeeded, at least for a while.
Now, the Bass people (inexplicably) still don't have too much reason to complain. The most recent polling appears to have all been done before the primary, in which Karen Bass took the top spot by a smidge over five points. The outcome of the general election will depend a lot on what the 25.5 percent of voters who chose Spencer Pratt do; it's hard to see those people voting for the incompetent Bass, but then seeing them vote for the Democratic Socialist of America member (she's a commie) is even more of a reach. Karen Bass, amazingly, even after all that has happened, may actually win reelection.
That doesn't make this fake news poll any less entertaining, though. It reminds one of a certain fake news poll from Iowa in the 2024 presidential race, which probably gave Kamala Harris and her campaign team a good case of the happy feet, at least until President Trump crushed Kamala Harris by 13 points in Iowa.
Here's the thing: Polls, and the industry that has grown up around them, are fun. It's fun to watch the trends and fun to crunch numbers. But, as this episode and others like it serve as a cautionary tale, don't pay too much attention to individual polls. Look for trends and averages if you're looking to crunch numbers and make predictions; remember that predictions are hard to make, especially about the future, and remember also that the only poll that counts is the one on Election Day.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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