Fake Poll Showing Karen Bass Lead Exposed

A poll showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass cruising toward reelection was completely invented, its creators admitted Monday, after the fake survey successfully entered the city’s political bloodstream without anyone verifying it.

The purported Median Strategies poll showed Bass leading Councilmember Nithya Raman by nearly 12 points ahead of the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff.

The document claimed 560 Los Angeles voters were surveyed between July 30 and Aug. 5 and advertised a 4.1% margin of error.

None of it was real.

After repeated inquiries from the Los Angeles Times, Median Strategies acknowledged that the operation was a test of how easily fabricated polling could spread through political media.

“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 group said in an email.

“We are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.”

The fake survey also inserted itself into the battle over voters who supported celebrity candidate Spencer Pratt during the primary.

It claimed 16% of respondents had backed Pratt, with approximately 85% of those voters planning to support Bass and just 7% moving to Raman.

“Faced with a choice between the incumbent and a Democratic Socialists of America-aligned challenger, most Pratt voters appear to be treating Bass as the more familiar, more moderate option rather than sitting out the race,” Median wrote in its fabricated analysis.

The language offered reporters, campaigns and political operatives an irresistible narrative: Conservative and independent Pratt voters were supposedly breaking overwhelmingly for the incumbent rather than the DSA-aligned challenger.

But there were no 560 respondents. There was no 4.1% margin of error. There was no verified 12-point Bass lead.

There was only a document designed to look official and a political ecosystem willing to treat it seriously.

Median Strategies says the deception was an experiment.

Los Angeles politics became the laboratory.

Absolutely insane: a company created a fake poll LA mayor poll as a “short term social media experiment”

And now, instead of taking responsibility, is declining interviews, “not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved”https://t.co/pDmkPtVgD5

— Jeremy B. White (@JeremyBWhite) August 17, 2026