Staff Reports
Something smelled fishy in the Mississippi Senate race this week, and it wasn’t the politics. A tiny, little-known outfit called Wedgewood Polls admitted it invented most of the surveys it published. Around the same time, the Senate Majority PAC — the outside group tied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — suddenly dropped $1.2 million on TV ads in Mississippi. The timing is too close to be comfortable, and the questions are simple: who believed the fake poll, and why did national Democrats rush in on a mirage?
What happened with Wedgewood Polls
Investigators at a poll‑watching site called FiftyPlusOne did the heavy lifting and exposed odd files and fake data. Wedgewood then posted a statement saying their work was an “experiment” to show how easy it is to fake polls. That is a convenient excuse when the fake numbers had already circulated. One bogus topline showed Senator Cindy Hyde‑Smith 52% and Democrat Scott Colom 48% — a shocker in a deep‑red state that got media attention and was shared by Colom’s campaign.
How a fake poll can trigger real spending
Polling shapes the story. When a poll makes a safe seat look close, forecasters blink, reporters write more, and national groups reallocate millions. That is exactly what happened here: trackers picked up the Wedgewood numbers, coverage increased, and the Senate Majority PAC announced a $1.2M TV buy to boost District Attorney Scott Colom. We do not yet have a smoking‑gun memo proving the fake poll alone caused the buy, but the sequence — fake poll, breathless coverage, ad buy — is plain enough to demand answers.
Why this matters for voters and the information ecosystem
Fraudulent polling doesn’t just distort headlines. It wastes donor dollars, misleads voters, and rewards sloppy media practices. If a phony poll can persuade a national PAC to spend seven figures, then the system for vetting polls is broken. Aggregators and newsrooms must do better. Broadcasters should stop treating every new “pollster” like a reputable source until someone checks the math and the raw data.
Time for answers and tougher rules
Senate Majority PAC and the Colom campaign should say exactly what they relied on before funneling money into Mississippi. Poll trackers and news outlets should explain how Wedgewood’s numbers slipped through. And the industry should adopt common‑sense rules: require pollsters to publish methods and raw files, verify sample sources, and pull suspicious entries fast. Democrats can blame a prank if they like, but voters deserve a cleaner game. Until the media and the PACs fix this, “shock” races will come and go — with taxpayers and donors left holding the bill.
