A polling firm whose surveys were reproduced by prominent media outlets, including Newsweek, has said that its results were fabricated and that the deception was a social experiment to expose weaknesses in the industry. Wedgewood Polls made the statement on October 20 after researchers at election analysis website FiftyPlusOne confronted it with evidence that its underlying data was fake. Wedgewood Polls said that the operation was intended to establish how easily a fictitious polling company could obtain recognition from polling aggregators and media outlets.
Newsweek has contacted Wedgewood Polls for comment. Newsweek has retracted three articles and corrected others. Other publications that reproduced Wedgewood surveys included The Hill, Breitbart, The Daily Beast, and the Washington Examiner.
The results were also included in prominent polling databases, including those maintained by The New York Times, Nate Silver, VoteHub, and FiftyPlusOne, before the firm was exposed by FiftyPlusOne. Decision Desk HQ said it had removed 17 Wedgewood polls from its race-level polling lists and averages. Wedgewood emerged in June 2026, presenting itself as a new independent polling organization.
One early survey covered Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary and showed John Fleming leading Julia Letlow by 4 percentage points. Letlow defeated Fleming by almost 14 points on June 27. Questions about the firm’s credibility were raised within weeks.
On July 10, Washington Monthly columnist Bill Scher said that Wedgewood had only recently entered the polling industry and that its first survey had been badly wrong. A more detailed investigation followed on August 20, when Straight Arrow News examined Wedgewood’s background. Its investigation said that the firm’s website, hosted on Google Sites, listed no staff names, telephone number or location.
Its X account had been created in June, and the website was registered on June 26.Adam Carlson, a Democratic pollster at a different firm, told Straight Arrow News that he communicated with someone at Wedgewood. Carlson said the person told him the two-person firm includes one progressive and one conservative. It declined to identify its operators publicly or participate in a video interview, according to Straight Arrow News, saying one member had previously experienced online harassment.
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