Fake Polls Warp Democratic Primaries Before 2026 Midterms

Unreliable and in some cases entirely fabricated political polls are distorting Democratic primaries, misleading donors and warping news coverage ahead of the midterms and the 2028 presidential race, according to a New York Times report published Saturday.

The Times reported that polls, traditionally used to measure public opinion rather than mold it, have been seized on this year by several Democratic campaigns pushing the perception that their candidates are surging — to solidify support, attract donors and scare off rivals.

The paper also tied the problem to the rise of political prediction markets, which it said have created financial incentives for untrustworthy or even fake polls at a moment when high-quality polling has become more expensive and harder to conduct.

What the polls got wrong

AlterNet, summarizing the Times report, pointed to two contests where the numbers collapsed on contact with voters.

In Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, consecutive public polls showed Dr. Abdul El-Sayed leading Rep. Haley Stevens by double digits. The expected blowout was so widely assumed that reporters questioned Stevens about her opponent's lead on primary day and El-Sayed's campaign celebrated early. El-Sayed won by one point.

In Wisconsin's Democratic gubernatorial primary, polls showed Francesca Hong as the inevitable winner, and Mandela Barnes dropped out early. David Crowley won the nomination instead — an outcome treated as a shock only because the public had been conditioned by the polling to believe Hong could not lose.

AlterNet also cited the Los Angeles Times exposing three entirely fabricated surveys — covering the Los Angeles mayoral race, the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary and the Nevada governor's race — that were pushed into the media as a self-described "social experiment."

Why it is happening

The industry's economics are part of it. AlterNet reported that traditional live-caller phone surveys have become too expensive for most firms, which have shifted to cheap online and text-message polling that over-represents younger, tech-savvy respondents and misses the older voters who reliably turn out.

Betting platforms are the other half. AlterNet reported that markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket let users wager on election outcomes, and that because those odds move easily, campaigns can flood the internet with cheap favorable polls to spike a candidate's price. Major media organizations then amplify the odds through partnerships, displaying gambling probabilities on television and in print as if they measured voter sentiment.