2 recent polls in high-profile elections exposed as being totally fake

A company that billed itself as a political polling firm has closed up shop after a Los Angeles Times reporter dug into its background and persuaded the company to admit that results of two polls recently released concerning high-profile races were completely fabricated.

According to a report in The Los Angeles Times by Noah Goldberg, an entity known as Median Strategies admitted that a poll it released in the lead-up to the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary last week and a poll released ahead of the Los Angeles mayor's election this November were totally fake. The fake poll in Wisconsin showed Francesca Hong, a socialist candidate who wants to defund police and cancel Thanksgiving, with a 20-point lead over her nearest opponent. Democrat David Crowley won the race in a nailbiter. 

Median Strategies also released a "poll" last week showing incumbent L.A. Mayor Karen Bass with a comfortable 11-point lead over fellow Democrat and city council member Nithya Raman, who edged out Spencer Pratt in the mayoral primary race earlier this year. That poll also was a total farce and went so far as to say it had surveyed L.A. voters who said they had cast a ballot for Pratt and were now breaking for Bass for the Nov. 3 election. 

"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 purported company said in an email to the L.A. Times. "We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews." Median went on to say in a social media post, "All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data."

Meanwhile, the polling data fooled Karen Bass' campaign, which trumpeted the big lead in a post on social media, and the polling data was also cited, as genuine, in a story by The California Post. It's not clear who is behind this shadowy group as the firm has shut down its website and social media accounts. Below, watch Goldberg discussing the bizarre turn of events on CNN Monday evening.