Wedgewood Fake Polls: FCC Chair Carr Warns Broadcasters

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, two weeks before the midterms, a firm calling itself Wedgewood Polls said on X that it was a "fictional entity" and that most of the survey numbers it had published since June were invented. It called the effort a test of whether news outlets and polling aggregators would vet a new pollster before running its results. The admission came after the poll-tracking site FiftyPlusOne questioned its raw data. The New York Times removed 15 Wedgewood surveys from its polling tracker and published an editors' note, and Newsweek retracted stories. Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who left the Democratic Senate primary in July, said a June Wedgewood poll showing her in single digits had dried up her donations.

On Oct. 21, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posted on X that there had been "a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls" and advised broadcasters "to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes." He did not name any poll or station. Anna Gomez, the commission's only Democrat, answered the same day that broadcasters who report publicly available polls in good faith should not be punished. A group of former FCC officials called Carr's warning part of a strategy to "tilt the electoral playing field in the President's favor." Late on Oct. 22, President Trump posted that "The New York Times got caught!" and said his defamation lawsuit against the paper was "getting stronger." Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) also wrote to Carr asking him to investigate outlets that reported Wedgewood numbers.