🧩 BND Motif Index · M635
Polls are manipulated
Pollsters are said to skew their numbers on purpose, to shape expectations, demoralize the other side, or set up a "beat the odds" story.
🕵️ Theories🗂️ Horserace🗂️ Elections🗂️ Political manipulation
- 11claims filed under it
- 1left show it came up on
- 2center shows it came up on
- 11right shows it came up on
- 1claim retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Polls are inaccurate 🧩 They're losing, actually!
🔗 goes with: 🧩 Shy Tory
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
🫏 left 1
⚖️ center 2
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
📰 In the news
the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)
- 📰 Polling firm admits to fabricating data 2026-10-21 to 2026-10-23
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-26 “Democrats use polls to suppress Republican turnout by predicting they will perform worse than they actually do.”
🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 🎙️ The Dan Bongino Show - 2026-10-26 “Fake polls in primary races manipulate donor behavior and change campaign dynamics.”
🎙️ Timcast IRL (podcast) 🎙️ PBD Podcast (podcast) - 2026-10-23 “Fabricated Wedgwood Polls damaged Mallory McMorrow's U.S. Senate campaign.”
🎙️ The Megyn Kelly Show 🎙️ Pod Save America - 2026-10-23 “A fake polling organization released fraudulent results for a Michigan Democratic Senate primary.”
🎙️ NPR Politics Podcast - 2026-10-23 “A fake poll damaged Mallory McMorrow's campaign and forced her to leave the race.”
🎙️ The Megyn Kelly Show 🎙️ Pod Save America - 2026-10-23 “Some pollsters are producing fake or phony polls to manipulate the public.”
🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 🎙️ Bannon's War Room 🎙️ The Michael Berry Show 🎙️ Timcast IRL (podcast) 🎙️ Breaking Points 🎙️ Louder with Crowder 🎙️ NPR Politics Podcast 🎙️ The Benny Show - 2026-10-22 “Wedgwood Polls fabricated its data as a social experiment to expose polling industry weaknesses.”
🎙️ The Megyn Kelly Show 🎙️ Morning Wire 🎙️ Pod Save America - 2026-10-21 “Polls are often used to influence outcomes rather than predict them.”
🎙️ Louder with Crowder 🎙️ Clay Travis & Buck Sexton 🎙️ Fox News Rundown - 2026-10-21 “Polls released to the public are designed to suppress the Republican vote.”
🎙️ The Michael Berry Show 🎙️ The Dan Bongino Show - 2026-10-13 “Polls are psychological operations designed to suppress the MAGA vote.”
🎙️ Bannon's War Room - 2026-10-08 “Republican polls are overly optimistic and biased, suggesting a potential 'miss' in the election cycle due to internal polling inaccuracies and voter behavior.” 🧶 people online
M635 · first seen 2026-10-08 · last 2026-10-27 · what this is · how the index works