The fake L.A. mayor poll adds to challenges facing the public opinion industry
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poll → add → industry
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- Experts say fake polls are exceedingly rare, but recent election results where polling missed the mark highlight the differences between high- and low-quality surveys.
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polling → click → surveys
As modes of communication have changed, polling operations have adopted a wide variety of methods to try to contact potential respondents.
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operations → change → respondents
When Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass amplified the results last week of a favorable political poll that turned out to be fake, she was inadvertently following in the footsteps of conservative Detroit singer Kid Rock.
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she → amplify → Rock
In 2017, as Rock — real name Robert Ritchie — publicly contemplated a run for U.S. Senate in his home state of Michigan, he posted on social media the results of a poll conducted by a firm calling itself Delphi Analytica that showed him leading Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow.
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him → contemplate → Stabenow
The people behind Delphi Analytica took down their website and refused to be identified, telling a local reporter: “Thanks again and go kid rock.”
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people → take → reporter
Little is known about who was responsible for a poll supposedly conducted by an outfit calling itself Median Strategies showing Bass with a wide lead in the L.A. mayoral race over Councilmember Nithya Raman.
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who → know → Raman
The group told The Times on Monday that its results were also fake.
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results → tell → Monday
But the episode has revived questions about whether political polling can be trusted, particularly in light of several recent high-profile primary races in which the polls seemed to have gotten the results wrong.
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results → revive → which
In the Michigan Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, a number of preelection polls showed progressive Abdul El-Sayed holding a commanding, double-digit lead over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), but on election night, El-Sayed eked out a one-point victory.
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Sayed → show → victory
The bogus poll — which the company claimed was a social media experiment — also showed Bass picking up support from most voters who supported Spencer Pratt in the mayoral primary.
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who → claim → primary
In Wisconsin, numerous polls showed progressive state Rep. Francesca Hong leading Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley in the Democratic primary for governor.
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Hong → show → governor
Crowley narrowly defeated Hong in the primary.
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Crowley → defeat → primary
Median Strategies — the entity behind the fake Los Angeles poll — claimed on social media that it had also conducted polling in the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial race and that it had also gotten it wrong about Hong.
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it → claim → Hong
Polling in primary elections can be particularly difficult, because it can be hard to know who will actually show up on election day, said Christian Grose, a USC political science professor.
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Grose → poll → day
Both Michigan and Wisconsin also hold open primaries, meaning that any voter can cast a ballot in a race, regardless of party affiliation, making it harder for pollsters to predict exactly who will cast a ballot on election day.
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who → hold → day
Experts say fake polls are exceedingly rare but that these recent election results highlight the differences between high- and low-quality polls and how much easier it has become to conduct less rigorous polling.
“The barriers to entry are a lot lower now than they were 20 to 30 years ago,” said Charles Franklin, a professor of law and public policy at Marquette Law School who conducts the Marquette Law School Poll.
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who → say → Poll
Put simply, a poll is a series of questions asked of a sample of people in a given locality, state or country whose opinions are supposed to represent the attitudes of everyone in the coverage area of the poll.
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opinions → put → poll
Pollsters typically give weights to the responses they receive — sometimes amplifying the voices of respondents from a particular ethnic group, for example — to ensure that the results are representative of the population they are surveying.
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they → give → population
For decades, survey respondents were typically contacted by phone.
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respondents → contact → phone
That work was expensive, Franklin said.
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Franklin → say → ?
“You needed a call center, you needed to hire interviewers and you needed some sort of data processing,” he said.
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he → need → processing
But now as modes of communication have changed — many people have ditched landlines and are hesitant to answer calls from unknown numbers on their cellphone — polling operations have adopted a wide variety of methods to try to contact survey respondents, including e-mail, text-messages and online surveys, which sometimes offer incentives to encourage participation.
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which → change → participation
Online polls can be conducted much more cheaply than polling using other modes of communication, but the quality can also vary widely.
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quality → conduct → communication
Historically, most polls randomly contacted survey respondents, backed by research showing that a random sample of the population — adjusted appropriately by demographics and other factors — would give a more accurate picture of the public’s attitude on a particular question.
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sample → contact → question
While Southern California was burning in January 2025, people online were placing money on potential outcomes.
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people → burn → outcomes
Experts say the possibility of making money on disasters can create dangerous incentives.
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possibility → say → incentives
But not all online polling relies on a randomly selected group of respondents, and when respondents are offered an incentive — such as cash — to complete an online survey, it can lead to inaccurate results.
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it → rely → results
The Pew Research Center released a report in 2024 showing that these so-called opt-in surveys did a particularly bad job of capturing the attitudes of adults under 30 and Latino adults.
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surveys → release → 30
Researchers at Pew, for example, asked respondents in one survey if they were licensed to operate a type of nuclear submarine.
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they → ask → submarine
In the survey, 12% of respondents under 30 said yes.
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% → say → 30
In reality, the share of people under 30 holding such a license “rounds to zero,” the report said.
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report → hold → zero
While even legitimate pollsters can get election results wrong — a poll represents public opinion at the time it was taken, and that can change — experts say there are a few key things to look out for when vetting the quality of a survey.
“The more transparent a poll is — in terms of its data and methods — the more you should believe it,” said Grose, who also conducts the California Elections and Policy Poll.
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who → get → Poll
Franklin said that pollsters with a track record are typically more trustworthy, as their future business and reputation relies on their accuracy.
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business → say → accuracy
He said that polling conducted by upstart organizations is not necessarily bad, but that the people conducting it don’t necessarily have the training or expertise of more established outfits.
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people → say → outfits
Inaccurate polling can misinform voters and lead to election night surprises, but it can also have a corrosive effect on elections themselves.
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it → misinform → elections
“Polling can drive outcomes,” Grose said.
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Grose → drive → outcomes
“Favorable polls lead to more fundraising.
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polls → lead → fundraising
