Free Republic

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Mallory McMorrow, the Democratic state senator who dropped out of the Michigan U.S. Senate race ahead of the August primary, says a fake poll helped sink her campaign after it admitted it fabricated its data. Wedgewood Polls, a self-described polling firm with an X account created in June 2026, released the survey on June 29. It showed progressive Abdul El-Sayed at 46%, moderate Haley Stevens and McMorrow at 9%. It also had McMorrow trailing Republican Mike Rogers, who was unopposed for the nomination. In a statement Tuesday, Wedgewood said it fabricated the results as a “social...

Nate Silver's midterm elections forecast shifted slightly toward Republicans after he removed a series of fake polls that he said had been roughly 1 point more favorable to Democrats than the broader consensus. The famed polling analyst said the biggest change came in Michigan, where Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed's lead fell from 3.6 points to 3. Silver noted that the movement also reflected the addition of a Marist poll to the model that showed El-Sayed 2 points ahead of Republican former Representative Mike Rogers. "Overall, our forecast is little changed, though that's partly because some strong generic ballot...

The polling industry needs major reform. Our statement below:

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, FiftyPlusOne reached out to Wedgewood Polls, a self-professed polling firm, with a request for comment on an investigation we had conducted into their alleged survey research. They did not respond to our request, but instead posted a public statement on social media admitting that they had been fabricating data. They also reached out directly in social media DMs minutes before publishing their memo with an official comment: “**** you,” plus the name of an individual not affiliated with FiftyPlusOne. Their statement alleges that FiftyPlusOne, the New York Times, and other poll aggregators did not conduct appropriate...