A polling company that claimed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass held a commanding lead over challenger Nithya Raman just admitted the whole thing was fake, an elaborate experiment designed to test how bogus data spreads through politics unchecked.
Median Strategies published a "poll" showing Bass leading Raman by nearly 12 points ahead of November's runoff, claiming a 560-voter sample and a 4.1% margin of error. When the Los Angeles Times pressed for verification, the company came clean.
"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, according to the Times.
The fake poll also claimed 85% of voters who'd backed right-wing mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt in the primary now favored Bass, a detail that led to headlines suggesting Pratt's supporters could swing the race. Bass's own campaign took the bait, posting the results on X with a triumphant message, before quietly deleting it once the fabrication came to light.
"Doing the work, showing up, and gaining momentum. Let's do this, LA!" Bass had posted, citing Median Strategies by name.
A Bass campaign spokesperson later called for any "bad faith attempts to influence elections" to be investigated and prosecuted.
The stunt wasn't a one-off. Median launched on social media just days earlier with only about 20 followers, first releasing a fabricated poll showing Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong leading Wisconsin's governor's primary race by more than 20 points — a race Hong ultimately lost. The company brushed off that miss publicly before rolling out its fictional L.A. numbers the very next day.
The L.A. mayoral race has been shaping up to be a heated contest. Raman, a city councilwoman, has accused Bass of obstructing progress on solving the city's housing crisis and conspiring with her political allies to force Raman out of a key homelessness oversight role in retaliation for running against her.