Democrats are up in arms after a so-called polling firm that projected far-left candidates as strong contenders in several primaries admitted that it had fabricated its polling data.Wedgewood Polling, which billed itself as an election survey company, released a statement Tuesday night admitting it used "fabricated numbers" for an "experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry."The group's polls were cited by Abdul El-Sayed's campaign amid a high-profile primary race against Michigan state Sen.Mallory McMorrow and U.S.
House Rep.Haley Stevens, D-Mich.
The nonpartisan polling aggregator Political Polls also cited Wedgewood in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, showing socialist Francesca Hong having an edge over Republican candidate Rep.Tom Tiffany, R-Wis.McMorrow said Wedgewood's numbers led to her donations drying up and reporters having "hounded" her with calls to drop out of the race.JONATHAN TURLEY: FAKE POLLSTER'S STUNT WAS A RECKLESS GAME WITH REAL RACESAbdul El-Sayed, a progressive candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S.
Senate in Michigan, films a social media video at a pool party for content creators supporting his campaign, Monday, Aug.3, 2026, in Detroit.
(AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)"Sure, a point was proven.Polling is broken.
But tens of thousands of people poured their hearts, time, energy, hard-earned money into something they believed in - for a year-and-a-half, and it was treated like a game," she said in a statement on X."Trust is already at an all-time low.
We don't get out of this mess without rebuilding trust.And media - who loves to ride the drama of a pollercoaster - needs to take a hard look at what's legitimate and what's not."Unlike El-Sayed, who advanced from Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, Hong lost Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary to the establishment-backed candidate.
El-Sayed, a former Michigan ...