Fake pollsters admit to fabricating polls for 2026 midterms In a press release released on October 20, 2026, Wedgewood Polls admitted to spreading fraudulent election polling data to national news networks. Wedgewood Polls fabricated statistics about the midterm elections in and fed them to the media. National news outlets, including The New York Times, VoteHub, FiftyPlusOne, and MS NOW, cited the made-up statistics as facts. The data has since been pulled. FiftyPlusOne investigated Wedgewood Polls, suspecting the data to have been fabricated. In response to FiftyPlusOne’s questioning, Wedgewood Polls released a statement on X and sent the statement to FiftyPlusOne with the message: “F— you.” Wedgewood claims they were conducting a “social experiment” designed to “demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry.” The fake data pertained to races in Michigan, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, Iowa, and Nevada. After some of their fake polls were included in major polling aggregators, the group attempted to raise money through GoFundMe for a poll on the Nebraska Senate and Governor’s races. Wedgewood raised $500 from 14 donors. ElectionIndex, which promoted the GoFundMe, promised to pay back anyone who donated to Wedgewood, stating, “ElectIndex did not conduct the Wedgewood Nebraska poll. We promoted its GoFundMe, and we now have reason to believe the poll was not real. We’re refunding every donor in full ourselves.” New York Times issued an Editor’s Note on October 21, 2026, on its Poll Tracker page after removing the fraudulent data. The note explained, “In all, The Times’s poll tracker included 15 polls released by Wedgewood between June and October, some of which included multiple races. All of the group’s releases covered state- or congressional district-level races; the group’s polls were never included in the tracker or average of President Trump’s approval rating or of the national polls tracking overall preference for control of Congress.” Continue reading with link in reply! @nytimes @WedgewoodPolls @VoteHub @50plus1news