Longtime polling analyst Nate Silver on Thursday lashed out at those behind Wedgewood Polling, after the site said its polls were faked as part of a social experiment. In his Silver Bulletin newsletter, Silver said his opinion was that the site's explanation was "bulls***," adding that it was "a pathetic attempt to get ahead of the story after FiftyPlusOne was set to publish a story exposing the fraud." FiftyPlusOne's analysis revealed that Wedgewood's polls were largely fabricated, with the site getting ahead of the story's release in a statement Tuesday night. In his latest update, Silver also warned that a rise in fake polling could influence prediction markets and add to an overall effort to discredit the polling industry he sees as influenced by President Donald Trump and the White House.
"Another motive might be to discredit the polling industry overall," Silver said. "President Trump and the White House, after all, have frequently used the term 'fake polls' to refer to entirely valid polls when they show poor numbers for Republicans." Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email Thursday afternoon. In his update, Silver wrote that fake polls had become a very real problem in reporting on American politics for several years, citing previous instances where he had been led to question data stretching back to 2009.
Silver then turned to the newsletter to examine the polls that had been released by Wedgewood, including multiple fabricated surveys in Maine, Michigan and Texas, saying there had been a slight lean toward Democratic candidates in the results. The polls were used by several media outlets, including Newsweek, as well as Silver's tracking in the lead-up to the midterms. Newsweek has retracted three articles and corrected others that referenced Wedgewood survey results.
Silver also called some of the choices made unusual, as surveys were purported to have been run in races with very little other polling data already, making it difficult to determine averages alongside other more established pollsters. "Overall, compared with past fake pollsters—which often tried to fit in rather than draw attention to themselves—the Wedgewood 'polls' were a bit more narrative-shaping. Though I also wouldn’t overstate this," Silver said.
Silver also defended the vetting of polls, saying that his site often draws from The New York Times' polling site, which he said was staffed by highly skilled professionals who do carry out a lot of vetting—and had led to other fake polls being removed or never posted in the first place. He said that no poll vetting policy would ever be 100 percent accurate, as having too strict a policy could lead to false positives or other biases in trends. The analyst also said that while fake polls were not new, there were new risks, including the effort to discredit polls.
"One of them is publishing fake polls to manipulate prediction markets," he wrote. "Prediction markets have also been around for a long time but have far higher trading volumes now, potentially making for more profitable trades." Trump has spent years arguing that polls showing weak support for him or Republican candidates are inaccurate, biased or deliberately designed to suppress turnout. The president has often referred to such surveys as "fake polls" and has contrasted them with surveys that show stronger Republican performance.
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