Pollster Who Had Thanksgiving-Hating Socialist Up 23 Points Closes Up Shop, Admits to Bungling Wisconsin Race
An organization that released polls claiming far-left Democrat Francesa Hong was well ahead in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary for governor has admitted it made the whole thing up.
It also said a poll showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was far ahead of her challenger was fiction.
The group fessed up to the Los Angeles Times.
“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.
So this is pretty wild: A polling firm that came out of nowhere to show Francesca Hong with a 23-point lead over David Crowley in the Wisconsin primary has shut down and said its whole operation was bogus pic.twitter.com/QTmlXkvGPC
— Brett LoGiurato (@BrettLoGiurato) August 18, 2026
“We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews,” the email said.
In a social media post, Median had written, “Polling has a credibility problem. Ours is the fix: no partisan clients, no campaign or party money, numbers that go wherever the data takes them even when it’s inconvenient. Trustworthy polling, rebuilt.”
After Hong, who the fake poll said was up by 23 points, lost, Median issued a statement saying, “We got Wisconsin wrong- and by quite a margin too.”
Median then released a poll showing Bass ahead of City Council member Nithya Raman by almost 12 percentage points
Median also released a poll on the race for Nevada governor.
“This is much bigger than one fake poll,” Chris Wilson, a GOP pollster who now leads the public opinion firm EyesOver, said, according to the Associated Press.
“It’s never been easier to make invented numbers look legitimate, and campaigns and outside groups have every incentive to amplify anything favorable before anyone verifies it.”
AP noted that before Median’s website went dark, it said it “has concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls.”
“All previously published polling releases have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data,” it wrote.
No explanation for the “social experiment” has been provided.
Hong is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who has been defending her past trashing of Thanksgiving in the closing days of the race, as noted by The Hill.
Her social media post in 2020 said America should “cancel Thanksgiving” in order to “stop celebrating colonialism and the original superspreader event that killed indigenous folx [sic] and women.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley ended up defeating Hong in the primary.
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