Karen Bass Touted Fake Poll Showing Her Beating Progressive Rival
Left says
- •Bass and her campaign were themselves victims of a deliberate hoax designed to infiltrate the political information ecosystem, and sharing a poll that appeared to come from a functioning firm with a stated methodology is an understandable mistake in a media environment flooded with survey data.
- •The real story is the vulnerability of the entire polling and media ecosystem to fabricated data, since local TV news and political reporters also cited the fake numbers before anyone verified them.
- •Raman's campaign raises fair concerns about basic vetting and communication failures within the Bass administration, but the mayor's team acted appropriately once the deception was exposed by calling for legal accountability for whoever orchestrated the hoax.
- •Focusing blame solely on Bass distracts from the anonymous actors who built a fake firm, complete with a false methodology page, specifically to manipulate public perception of multiple competitive Democratic primary races.
Right says
- •Bass eagerly promoted a poll flattering to her own campaign without doing any due diligence on the obscure organization behind it, exposing a willingness to amplify convenient numbers rather than verified ones.
- •This episode fits a broader pattern of unreliable and even fraudulent polling data shaping media narratives around progressive-versus-moderate Democratic primaries this cycle, including in Wisconsin and Michigan.
- •Raman's campaign is right to highlight this as part of a pattern of the Bass administration getting basic facts wrong, from pothole announcements to cleanup deadlines to now an unverified poll.
- •The fact that a fake firm could so easily fool a sitting mayor's campaign, multiple news outlets, and prominent poll trackers underscores how little scrutiny is applied to convenient data before it spreads widely.
Common Take
High Consensus- Median Strategies fabricated polls in the Los Angeles mayoral race, the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary, and the Nevada governor's race, then admitted the results were fake and shut down.
- The fake Bass-Raman poll claimed a 12-point Bass lead based on a purported survey of 560 voters with a 4.1% margin of error, details that were entirely invented.
- Bass shared the poll on social media as evidence of campaign momentum before the fabrication was exposed by the Los Angeles Times.
- The episode demonstrates real risks in how unverified polling data can spread quickly through social media and news coverage without independent confirmation.
The Arguments
Left argues
Bass and her campaign were the targets of a sophisticated hoax specifically engineered to look legitimate, complete with a fake methodology page, sample size, and margin of error, and multiple news outlets and prominent poll trackers were fooled too, not just the mayor.
Right counters
Being fooled by others doesn't excuse Bass's own failure to verify a poll before publicly touting it as proof of momentum in her own campaign; a sitting mayor's team has more resources and responsibility to vet data than an anonymous X account does.
Right argues
Bass eagerly promoted a flattering but completely unverified poll from an obscure firm with no track record, revealing a willingness to amplify convenient numbers without basic scrutiny, which fits a broader pattern of her administration getting facts wrong.
Left counters
Campaigns cite favorable polls constantly and this one was deliberately designed to pass a cursory check, including a professional-looking methodology section, so treating this single incident as proof of a broader pattern of carelessness overstates what happened.
Left argues
The real scandal is the vulnerability of the entire political information ecosystem to fabricated data, since local TV news and reporters also ran with the fake numbers before anyone verified them, meaning the hoax exploited systemic weaknesses far beyond any one campaign.
Right counters
The ecosystem's vulnerability doesn't erase Bass's individual accountability; a candidate publicly celebrating a poll as evidence of 'momentum' is a distinct, self-inflicted choice separate from whether journalists also failed to verify it.
Right argues
This episode is part of a documented pattern this cycle of unreliable or fraudulent polling distorting progressive-versus-moderate primary narratives in Wisconsin and Michigan too, suggesting a systemic problem with how convenient numbers spread unchecked.
Left counters
Lumping together genuinely fake polls with merely inaccurate legitimate polls (like those in Wisconsin and Michigan that missed final margins) conflates two very different problems and unfairly implies Bass's case is evidence of a wider fraud pattern rather than an isolated deception.
Left argues
The Bass campaign responded appropriately once the deception was revealed by calling for the perpetrators to be investigated and prosecuted, showing accountability rather than doubling down on the fake results.
Right counters
Demanding legal consequences for the hoaxers only after being caught touting their fake numbers doesn't address the prior failure to verify the poll in the first place, and conveniently shifts focus away from the campaign's own lack of diligence.
Challenge Questions
These questions target genuine internal contradictions — meant to provoke honest reflection.
Right asks Left
“If sharing an unverified but favorable poll is an understandable mistake given the flooded media environment, why should Raman's campaign not be equally justified in citing the same standard of leniency the next time a poll favors her?”
Left asks Right
“If the core lesson is that campaigns should be held responsible for failing to vet convenient data before amplifying it, does that same standard apply to conservative outlets and figures who have promoted their own favorable but later-discredited polls, or is the scrutiny being applied selectively here?”
Outlier Report
Left Fringe
Progressive commentators and DSA-aligned figures sympathetic to Raman (e.g., pundits on outlets like The Nation or Jacobin-adjacent commentators) may argue this reveals deeper corruption or complicity by the Bass campaign, going beyond the mainstream left framing of mere victimhood; this represents maybe 10-15% of the left.
Right Fringe
Figures like those at The Federalist and Blaze Media push the narrative further into a broader indictment of Democratic Party dishonesty and systemic left-wing media failure, tying it to unrelated controversies like Bass's Skid Row vote-counting; this framing represents roughly 20% of the right, more conspiratorial than the mainstream right critique of due diligence failure.
Noise Assessment
High noise ratio: much of the coverage is opportunistic use of the polling hoax to score points in the broader progressive-vs-moderate Democratic primary narrative (Hong, El-Sayed, Bass), with right-leaning outlets amplifying it far more than left-leaning ones, though the underlying public reaction is likely more muted and focused simply on competence and media literacy concerns.
Sources (14)
Locked in a competitive reelection race, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared on social media last week that a new poll was evidence that her campaign was "gaining momentum."
A poll claiming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was leading Councilmember Nithya Raman by a wide margin — and picking up support from most voters who backed Spencer Pratt in the mayoral primary — was bogus, the company behind the poll acknowledged Monday. The fake poll by Median Strategies showed Bass leading Raman by nearly 12 percentage points ahead of the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff, and said the results were based on a survey of 560 Los Angeles voters between July 30 and Aug. 5. It said it had a 4.1% margin of error.
A poll released earlier this month claiming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had a wide lead over Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman in the city's mayoral race was bogus, according to the company that released it. Median Strategies on Monday said in its announcement about the mayoral race poll that it has stopped its polling project. Their poll showed Bass ahead by nearly 12 points, citing the response of 560 Angelenos and with a 4.1 percent margin of error.
A fake poll claiming Karen Bass had opened up a double-digit lead over Nithya Raman has been slammed by the mayor's office, who demanded the authors face the "full force of the law." The bogus poll was circulated on Thursday by a company calling itself 'Median Strategies" and reported on by news outlets including The California Post and Fox 11, who interviewed political strategist Dave Meraz about its supposed implications. A number of prominent poll tracking social media profiles also posted the poll.
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/fake-poll-that-humiliated-karen-bass-was-part-of-social-experiment-organization-claims.jpg?id=67636851&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C71%2C0%2C84" /><br /><br /><p>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) triumphantly shared the results of a poll released last week <a href="https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2089439329664032936?s=20" target="_blank">showing</a> that she enjoyed a 50%-39% lead over Councilwoman Nithya Raman (D) ahead of the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff.</p><p>Bass <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260814184212/https://twitter.com/KarenBassLA/status/2088335396837208495" target="_blank">tweeted</a> an image of herself beside a graphic of the poll results and wrote, "Doing the work, showing up, and gaining momentum. Let's do this, LA!"</p><p class="pull-quote">'The mayor’s campaign promoted a fake poll without properly vetting the source.'</p><p>Unfortunately for the Democrat, the poll — said to have been based on a survey of 560 L.A. voters between July 30 and Aug. 5 — was entirely fake, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-17/poll-showing-bass-leading-raman-by-double-digits-was-bogus-company-says" target="_blank">reported</a> the Los Angeles Times.</p><p>The outfit behind the poll, which calls itself Median Strategies, <a href="https://medianstrategies.com/" target="_blank">announced</a> on its website that 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."</p><p>"Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification," added the bogus pollster.</p><p>The fake pollster went the distance with its so-called "social experiment" in the Bass race, providing some additional fake details and even analysis.</p><p>It claimed, for instance, that of the 16% of respondents who previously voted for Spencer Pratt, over 85% were planning to vote for Bass in the general election, reported the Times.</p><p><strong>RELATED: <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/socialist-delivered-big-upset-in-wisconsin-after-voter-data-mishap" target="_blank">Socialist who hates America loses in Wisconsin after voter data mishap</a></strong></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image"> <img alt="" class="rm-shortcode" id="91efd" src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=67636853&width=980" /><small class="image-media media-photo-credit">Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times/Getty Image</small></p><p>Median Strategies noted, "Faced with a choice between the incumbent and a Democratic Socialists of America-aligned challenger, most Pratt voters appear to be treating Bass as the more familiar, more moderate option rather than sitting out the race."</p><p>An <a href="https://archive.ph/DU9yK" target="_blank">archived version</a> of the outfit's now-scrubbed website provides further evidence of the fakers' commitment to the ruse.</p><p>Under the heading "How We Poll," Median Strategies said its releases are "built on a documented sampling frame, a mixed-mode interview process, and a transparent weighting scheme. We publish our methodology alongside every release so you can evaluate our numbers the same way we do."</p><p>Unlike Bass, Pratt wasn't fooled, <a href="https://x.com/spencerpratt/status/2088294210856223151?s=20" target="_blank">writing</a> on Friday in response to the California Post's <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260814034154/https://nypost.com/2026/08/13/us-news/spencer-pratts-la-voters-could-be-deciding-factor-in-mayors-race/" target="_blank">reporting</a> on the fake results, "LOL you think my voters are going to vote for the crying carpetbagger in charge of homelessness who 'found' 40K votes on Skid Row 7 days after the election?"</p><p>Blaze News has reached out to the California Post for comment.</p><p>The Bass campaign has demanded that consequence be visited upon those who so badly bruised their egos.</p><p>"This poll was reported on by a news outlet," a spokesperson for the Bass campaign told the Times. "Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."</p><p>A spokesman for Raman's campaign criticized Bass for pushing the fake poll, <a href="https://ktla.com/news/local-news/fake-los-angeles-mayoral-race-poll-bass-raman/" target="_blank">telling </a>KTLA-TV, "The mayor’s campaign promoted a fake poll without properly vetting the source."</p><p>"It is the latest example of an administration that too often struggles to get the basics right — from posting about a pothole repair before the pothole was fixed to repeatedly giving Boyle Heights residents a Lineage cleanup deadline that the company now disputes," continued Raman's campaign. "Angelenos deserve a mayor who gets the facts right, communicates clearly, and does the work before announcing the result."</p><p>According to the Politics & Poll Tracker, one of the many accounts on X that shared but has since deleted fake polling from the outfit, Median Strategies had also released fake survey results regarding other races.</p><p>For example, Median Strategies <a href="https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2089439956787687698?s=20" target="_blank">allegedly released a poll</a> in the Nevada governor's race showing that Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo was leading Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) 51%-46%. Recent polling from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/nevada-governor-election-polls-2026.html" target="_blank">apparently legitimate outfits</a> have Lombardo leading Ford by at least seven percentage points.</p><p>Median Strategies also released a poll on the Wisconsin governor's primary race <a href="https://x.com/BrettLoGiurato/status/2089549375664013768?s=20" target="_blank">showing</a> the <a href="https://news.grabien.com/story/francesca-hong-says-that-having-a-half-white-son-is-a-proximity-to-whi" target="_blank">white-hating</a> democratic socialist Francesca Hong with a 23-point lead over Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Crowley <a href="https://www.theblaze.com/news/socialist-delivered-big-upset-in-wisconsin-after-voter-data-mishap" target="_blank">won</a> the Democratic nomination in a tight election last week.</p><p>Median Strategies alleged that no one involved with its faking polling operation "received compensation or financial benefit from the project, and the project was not funded, commissioned, or directed by any candidate, campaign, political party, PAC, media organization, or other outside entity."</p><p><em>Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. </em><em><a href="https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/theblaze-articlelink" target="_self">Sign up here</a></em><em>!</em></p>
<p>A fake polling firm projecting Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Wisconsin Democrat socialist gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong with leads over their opponents admits these were fake polls as part of a "short-term social experiment."</p> <p>The post <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/08/18/polling-firm-showing-karen-bass-francesca-hong-in-lead-admits-fake-polls-short-term-social-experiment/" rel="nofollow">Polling Firm Showing Karen Bass, Francesca Hong in Lead Admits Fake Polls: ‘Short-Term Social Experiment’</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.breitbart.com" rel="nofollow">Breitbart</a>.</p>
‘Short-term social experiment’
A mysterious entity behind a poll showing leftist Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong with a double-digit lead admitted to faking its polls as part of a “social experiment.” Median Strategies directed media outlets on Monday to discount the polls it released this election season, claiming it was conducting an experiment on trust in unverified polling. ...
Median Strategies admitted its polls on the Los Angeles mayor race and Wisconsin primary were fabricated as a "social experiment" before closing.
<p>"Median Strategies 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."</p> The post <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/08/pollster-behind-karen-bass-12-point-lead-admits-poll-was-fake-shuts-down-operations/">Pollster Behind Karen Bass’ 12-Point Lead Admits Poll Was Fake, Shuts Down Operations</a> first appeared on <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com">Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion</a>.
Median Strategies, a polling company that published surveys showing large Democrat leads in high-profile races, has shut down after admitting its polling operation was a "social experiment" and that its previously released results should not be considered genuine.
<img alt="Failed Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" src="https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-18-at-1.27.51-PM-scaled-e1787074254461-1200x675.png" style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;" />Francesca Hong, the failed communist candidate in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary race, was supposed to shellac David Crowley. After all, she had a 23-point lead over her opponent, according to data from Median Strategies. But it turns out Median Strategies was a fake polling company that just wanted to run a “social experiment” and observe […]
Median Strategies, the company that released polls showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) and former Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong ahead with wide margins in their respective races, announced Monday it has closed. A message on the company’s website reads that it has “concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls.” “All…