A poll claiming Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was leading Council member Nithya Raman by a wide margin \u2014 and picking up support from most voters who supported Spencer Pratt in the mayoral primary \u2014 was bogus, the company behind the poll acknowledged Monday. <\/p>\n
The fake poll by Median Strategies showed Bass leading Raman by nearly 12 percentage points ahead of the Nov. 3 mayoral runoff, and said the results were based on a survey of 560 Los Angeles voters between July 30 and Aug. 5. It said it had a 4.1% margin of error.<\/p>\n
But Monday, in response to repeated inquiries from The Times, the company said the purported \u201cpoll\u201d was nothing of the kind. <\/p>\n
\u201cMedian 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,\u201d the company said in an email to The Times. \u201cWe are not seeking publicity or attribution for the individuals involved and are declining interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n
The phony poll also claimed that 16% of its respondents said they had voted for Pratt, and that of those voters, about 85% were planning to vote for Bass in the general, while about 7% would support Raman. <\/p>\n
\u201cFaced 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,\u201d Median wrote in its analysis. <\/p>\n
That angle led to a headline in the California Post, which declared that \u201cSpencer Pratt\u2019s voters<\/a> could be deciding factor in LA mayor showdown according to latest poll.\u201d <\/p>\n The Post didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Bass cheered the results after the fake survey was released last week. <\/p>\n