Scott Colom (Photo from Colom's Facebook page)
- “The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation,” Wedgewood Polls said Tuesday.
Last week, Democrat Scott Colom’s campaign for U.S. Senate in Mississippi pushed a poll produced by Wedgewood Polls, saying the race with incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is “tied.”
Magnolia Tribune reported on the survey from Wedgewood Polls, saying at the time, “Some media outlets are biting on the results,” sharing headlines like the one from Newsweek that claimed, “Democrat Threatens Historic Senate Upset in Deep-Red Mississippi.”
Colom’s campaign used the poll, coupled with other friendly polling, to raise the prospect that the Democrat could upset the Republican come November 3.
Magnolia Tribune also pointed out that Wedgewood’s first published poll in June for the Louisiana U.S. Senate Republican Primary was widely off the mark, nearly a 13-point swing from its days-old poll when the results were tallied.
On Tuesday, Wedgewood Polls admitted its polling was fabricated in a stunt “to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall low barrier to entry in the modern political polling industry, makes this public statement.”
“Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverified, low-quality methodology,” the group posted on X. “We wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary? The short answer: Far too easy.”
The statement from Wedgewood went on to say that despite having no history, formal credentials, or real data behind the vast majority of our releases, Wedgewood Polling was added to major polling aggregators, including The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne, and VoteHub, and repeatedly treated as a legitimate data source.
“Our fabricated numbers were given instant credibility across national media platforms-including being cited on air and in reporting by outlets such as MS NOW,” the group wrote. “The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation.”
Wedgewood said their “experimental project” was never intended to sway an election or permanently mislead the public; “it was designed as a wake-up call.”
“If a fictional entity run by a small group of industry veterans can be integrated into major polling averages and cited by major news organizations, the standards for how polling data is vetted, aggregated, and reported must change,” the group added.
Colom’s Senate campaign in Mississippi heavily pushed the poll, using the headline in their press release, “NEW INDEPENDENT POLL: Mississippi Senate Race Tied As Race Shifts In Scott Colom’s Favor.”
“In case you missed it, a new, independent poll has Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race in a dead heat, with Cindy Hyde-Smith leading Scott Colom by just 4-points, within the poll’s 4.3-point margin of error,” Colom’s campaign shared, citing the Newsweek article on the Wedgewood poll and noting, “The Wedgewood Polls survey found Hyde-Smith leading Colom 52 percent to 48 percent, a gap inside its 4.3-point margin of error. The poll of 511 likely voters was conducted from October 12 to 14.”
Colom campaign Manager Gerard Henderson used the friendly polling, now known to be faked, to say, “In a state Donald Trump won, an incumbent Republican senator should be cruising. Instead, Cindy Hyde-Smith is scared she’s about to lose.”
As previously reported, Mississippi saw a similar playbook as Colom is using in the lead up to Election Day from a Democrat challenger to Senator Hyde-Smith. Like Colom’s campaign, media outlets ran with polling results in 2020 in her race with Mike Espy just ahead of Election Day showing the Democrat was within 1% of the Republican incumbent. Espy then lost by 10%.
