Polling’s dirty little secret

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Washington Secrets, which is dominated by fraud of one kind or another. First up, we look at the scandal rocking the polling world today, and why it might be even more common than you realize. Then, we recap the life of a prominent fraudster whose pardon appeal has failed…

It was one of the worst-kept secrets in polling. Publish a faked poll or put your hand on the scales to give a surprise result, and the numbers will quickly be amplified by breathless media coverage, social media discussion, and maybe even by skewing the forecast gods of the aggregation world.

Secrets was warned about it recently as we dug into a string of polls from red states that showed oddly positive results for Democrats.

“There probably are like assigned firms in the Democratic apparatus that are kind of known as the BS poll people,” said one pollster, who was granted anonymity to discuss what goes on behind the scenes.

That was before Wedgewood Polls revealed on Tuesday evening that it had fabricated its results.

It only came clean after other pollsters at FiftyPlusOne smelled a rat and asked the new firm to explain its methodology.

“Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified, low-quality methodology,” Wedgewood posted on X.

“We 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? The short answer: Far too easy.”

The firm wasn’t to blame, it continued, pointing the finger instead at the aggregators such as the New York Times and FiftyPlusOne, which included its numbers in its much-cited rolling poll averages, and MS Now, which quoted its results live on air.

It is the second outfit to claim it was running an experiment once its results were outed as suspect — see Median Strategies — and the third to be suspended from major polling aggregators, along with TPSI Polls, which, for example, did not disclose it was being funded by one of the Republican candidates in Florida’s gubernatorial race.

It is not hard to see why some firms might want to skew the numbers for political ends. Campaigns and donors make big decisions on strategy or spending based on data.

So Republicans and Democrats are pouring money into the Senate race in Kansas after polls suggested the deep-red state might be flipped. Is the data suspect?

Former Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race after a Wedgewood poll said her support had crashed into the single digits. Fundraising dried up, even though her private figures suggested support remained robust.

Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow, along with Abdul El-Sayed in August. McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic primary after a poll said her support had crashed. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

A second pollster said aggregation sites could be manipulated if they were fed inaccurate numbers from fake polls.

“It would not be hard to do,” they said.

The result is another crisis for the polling industry, which has struggled to regain trust after failing to forecast a win for Donald Trump in 2016.

No wonder legitimate pollsters are furious that Wedgewood has further undermined their position.

Natalie Jackson, founder of Centerline Research, said the firm’s behavior was unethical.

“This is not a problem with ‘the polling industry,’” she posted. “It is a problem with media, aggregators, and social media. Real pollsters who do real work are not the problem.”

In other words, the problem lies with aggregators who don’t do enough to investigate the rash of new polling firms able to take advantage of cheap new methods of conducting surveys and journalists in search of a shock headline. It is the gatekeepers who have been asleep at the wheel.

Tom Bonier, chief executive of the Tara Group of data-driven strategy firms, said: “The polling industry doesn’t need reform, the industry built around how these polls are reported on and aggregated does.”

Trump allies sniff an opportunity to amp up pressure on what they see as opponents.

Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said the surge in fake polls was designed to alter turnout and enthusiasm.

“The FCC takes these issues seriously,” he said. “Broadcasters are prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes. It is important that broadcasters comply with their public interest obligations.”

We’ll find out on Nov. 3 whether the polling was accurate.

You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly, whom you can reach at [email protected] with your comments, story tips, and suggestions.

Pardon me

Stan Fitzgerald was one of the biggest forgers of sports memorabilia in American history. When Stan’s Sports Memorabilia was shut down in a 1999 FBI raid, it had sold more than $2 million of baseball bats, balls, and photographs carrying faked autographs.

Fitzgerald, a former New Jersey narcotics detective, would buy vast quantities of unsigned sporting goods, ship them to a forger in California and then sell them on via the internet, mail-order catalogs, and cable shopping networks.

He, his wife, and his mother were accused of ordering up forgeries of signatures of superstars, such as Mickey Mantle, when they died, knowing the value would explode.

In the end, he was sentenced to eight months in prison after securing a plea deal.

But you can’t keep a conman down. Fitzgerald reinvented himself and prospered under Trump, founding Veterans for America First, posting photographs of himself at Mar-a-Lago with the president, and even producing a movie about wrongful convictions (Can you see where this is going?) before being forced out when his history became known.

He spotted his chance when Trump returned to power and set upon a massive wave of pardons. They number more than 1,700 if you include those related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and still run at orders of magnitude more than the equivalent from his first term.

A check on the Department of Justice’s pardons website reveals Fitzgerald’s application for a pardon was recently rejected.

So it is disappointing to see that there are limits to the Trump administration’s judicial largesse.

Lunchtime reading

Trump rages at ‘sick’ journalist after golf course question: Bad tempers have been in evidence around the White House for this past week. And things are only getting worse.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad featuring Amy Acton’s estranged mother roils Ohio’s governor race: This seems like a major misstep by the Republican candidate for governor in Ohio.

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