A poll released earlier this month claiming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass held a significant lead over City Council member Nithya Raman was fabricated, the company responsible for the data announced Monday. Median Strategies stated that the results were not genuine and were instead part of a "social experiment" designed to test how unverified information circulates within the political ecosystem. Following the admission, the company withdrew all previous releases and ceased its polling project.
The announcement follows the distribution of data that suggested Bass led Raman by nearly 12 points in the mayoral race. The company had initially claimed the results were based on responses from 560 Los Angeles residents with a 4.1 percent margin of error. The data also included claims that 16 percent of respondents had voted for former reality television star Spencer Pratt in a previous race, and that 85 percent of those Pratt voters intended to support Bass in November.
Mayor Karen Bass had previously shared the poll's findings on social media in a post that has since been deleted. A spokesperson for the Bass campaign stated that any attempts to influence elections in bad faith should face investigation and prosecution. A spokesperson for Raman’s campaign criticized the mayor’s administration for promoting the data without verification, linking the incident to other administrative issues involving public communication.
The scale of the impact involves the entire "political information ecosystem," as described by Median Strategies. The false data reached the highest levels of city leadership, as evidenced by the Mayor's public promotion of the findings to her social media followers. While the specific number of voters who saw or were influenced by the false lead is not reported, the incident creates a precedent for how campaigns and media outlets verify local polling firms before reporting their findings as fact.
What happens next depends on whether local authorities act on the Bass campaign's request for an investigation into the "bad faith attempts to influence elections." Median Strategies has stated it will not publish additional polls and is declining further interviews or requests for attribution for the individuals involved. The mayoral election between Bass and Raman remains scheduled for November, but no new verified polling data was provided in the report to replace the withdrawn figures.