The polling tracker FiftyPlusOne announced Thursday it has suspended the use of data from The Public Sentiment Institute (TPSI) and Patriot Polling following allegations of data falsification and undisclosed partisan funding. The decision centers on surveys related to Florida’s Republican gubernatorial primary. FiftyPlusOne stated it is "permanently banning" TPSI for allegedly fabricating vote-choice data and failing to disclose that its work was funded by the campaign of Republican candidate James Fishback.
This action follows a separate incident last week involving a firm called Median Strategies, which admitted to distributing false polling data regarding the Los Angeles mayoral race. Median Strategies characterized that activity as a "short-term social experiment" regarding the spread of unverified information. FiftyPlusOne and other tracking organizations, including VoteHub, have since moved to exclude or flag data from firms found to have violated disclosure or methodological standards.
TPSI acknowledged it failed to disclose its funding source but denied allegations of deliberate data falsification. In an "accuracy review," the firm stated that the discrepancies resulted from an "experimental layer" applied to the data after internal analysts felt the initial results did not align with their perception of the race. This adjustment moved James Fishback into second place in their poll, ahead of Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) eventually won the primary on Tuesday, defeating both candidates.
FiftyPlusOne also issued a temporary suspension for Patriot Polling, citing evidence that the firm may have also conducted surveys for the Fishback campaign without public disclosure. The tracker stated it would mark all existing surveys from these pollsters in its database as partisan because it can no longer verify their claims of nonpartisanship. Patriot Polling has not yet responded to requests for comment.
The scale of this issue involves at least three polling firms—TPSI, Patriot Polling, and Median Strategies—across multiple high-profile races in Florida and Los Angeles. For the Florida primary, which concluded Tuesday, the specific data changes by TPSI were enough to swap the second and third-place positions in a poll involving Rep. Byron Donalds, James Fishback, and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins. FiftyPlusOne has not specified how many individual surveys within its database will be reclassified as partisan, but the organization stated the ban on TPSI is permanent and includes all historical entries.
The concrete day-to-day change for readers is a loss of access to certain polling projections and a shift in how remaining data is presented. Users of FiftyPlusOne will now see data from these firms marked with "partisan" labels, which the tracker says is necessary because it cannot confirm the independence of the research. These changes set a precedent for how polling aggregators manage quality control following the American Association for Public Opinion Research's recent statement on fabricated polling. While the Florida primary is over, the tracking adjustments will remain in place for the general election cycle, and FiftyPlusOne has not provided a date for when the temporary suspension of Patriot Polling might be lifted.