Mayor Bass Incidentally Promotes Fake Poll Showing Double-Digit Lead Over Nithya Raman

Mayor Karen Bass incidentally promoted — and since deleted — a fake poll showing her leading in the mayoral race by double digits, falling for a “social experiment” that was meant to highlight how polling information spreads without verification.

Median Strategies ran the poll and “found” that Bass led opponent Nithya Raman by nearly 12 percentage points ahead of the November mayoral runoff. The company revealed Monday that the poll was actually a “short term social experiment.”

“Median Strategies was created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the company said in an email statement, first reported by the Los Angeles Times. “We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.”

The poll also claimed 16% of its respondents said they voted for Spencer Pratt in the primary election, and that of those voters, about 85% were planning to vote for Bass in the general election, while about 7% would support Raman.

The falsified poll said that the results were based on a survey of 560 Angelenos between July 30 and Aug. 5. Mayor Bass herself applauded the results when the survey was released last week.

“Doing the work, showing up and gaining momentum. Let’s do this, LA!” Bass said in a since-deleted X post from her campaign account, citing Median Strategies as the source.

Several outlets and media personalities took the poll as fact when it was released last week.

“This poll was reported on by a news outlet,” a Bass campaign spokesperson told TheWrap. “Any bad faith attempts to influence elections should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Raman’s office also responded to the fake poll — and Bass’ promotion of it — on Monday.

“The Mayor’s campaign promoted a fake poll without properly vetting the source,” a spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement. “It is the latest example of an administration that too often struggles to get the basics right — from promoting a pothole repair before the pothole was fixed to repeatedly giving Boyle Heights residents a Lineage cleanup deadline the company now disputes. Angelenos deserve a mayor who gets the facts right, communicates clearly, and does the work before announcing the result.”

Median Strategies’ website currently displays that it has “concluded its polling project and will not publish additional polls.” The site also states that all previously published polling releases should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.

The company also added a financial disclosure statement, clarifying that no individual involved with Median Strategies received compensation or financial benefit from the project and that the fake poll was not funded or commissioned by a candidate or political party.