Times carried fake polls, but Trump overstates what the scandal proves

The New York Times did publish fabricated figures from Wedgewood Polls and removed 15 of the outfit’s polls after it admitted making up most of its data. That confirms the core of Donald Trump’s accusation — but not his sweeping verdict that everything about the newspaper is “ARTIFICIAL”.

“The New York Times got caught!” Trump wrote on Truth Social late on 22 October 2026, US eastern time. He also said his lawsuit against the paper was “getting stronger and stronger”.

The removals had already been reported by the Lynnwood Times on 21 October, before Trump’s post. The affair exposes a genuine failure to screen outside polling data, rather than establishing that the newspaper manufactured the results itself.

How the invented figures got through

Wedgewood’s admission followed a request for comment on 20 October from FiftyPlusOne, an election-analysis site that had also included its figures. The site said it had identified fraudulent raw survey data supplied by the outfit.

Wedgewood described its operation as an “experimental project” intended to expose weak oversight in the polling industry. It maintained that one crowdfunded Nebraska poll was genuine, while acknowledging that most of its releases were synthetic.

FiftyPlusOne said it had checked Wedgewood’s background before accepting its polls: researchers reviewed its methodology and confirmed previous polling experience for one of the people whose names it supplied. Those checks did not prevent invented data from being accepted.

The Times also described a screening process. In an editor’s note quoted by Ars Technica, the newspaper said Wedgewood had answered questions about its pollsters’ identities, survey methods and funding.

The paper said it used the figures for state and congressional-district races. They never entered its national trackers or averages of Trump’s approval rating or voters’ preference for which party should control Congress, according to the note.

The same note said the Times had excluded figures from Median Strategies — another outfit that admitted fabricating polls — because it had not answered questions about its methodology. That is relevant counterevidence to a claim of indiscriminate acceptance, but it does not excuse the failure over Wedgewood.

The false figures also travelled beyond the Times. Poll analyst Nate Silver said his Silver Bulletin election model received Wedgewood’s numbers through the newspaper’s database. After removing them, he reported that its averages and forecasts were “basically unchanged”, while cautioning that other polls were arriving at the same time.

Where comparable averages existed, Silver calculated that Wedgewood’s Democratic margins were about 0.6 percentage points more favourable than his earlier averages. Individual differences ran in both political directions.

Campaign harm is a different question from changes to a forecasting model. Michigan state senator Mallory McMorrow blamed a fabricated June poll in part for the collapse of her bid for the Democratic Senate nomination, WKAR reported. She said donations dried up and volunteers were devastated.

The report also noted that a separate Susquehanna survey had placed her third. But it showed 49% of voters undecided, against Wedgewood’s invented 6% — a markedly different picture of how open the contest remained.

The claimed legal boost

Trump’s post did not explain how the polling affair strengthened his lawsuit. In a Florida defamation action he brought in September 2025, he sought at least $15bn from the Times and other defendants.

His amended complaint of 16 October 2025 challenged two articles and the book *Lucky Loser*, all published in 2024, including their accounts of his business record and how *The Apprentice* shaped his public image. The filing also quotes a 2024 Times response saying its editors saw no basis to correct the articles.

The Wedgewood admission confirms a serious failure in screening and publishing outside polling. It does not, on its own, establish that the earlier reporting Trump challenged was false or defamatory.