Candidate paid for Florida poll — then the pollster changed voters' answers in his favor: report

# Candidate paid for Florida poll — then the pollster changed voters' answers in his favor: report

Bulletin, by John Bowden. Published 2026-08-21T06:35:57Z. Word count as logged by the page: 202.

- Polling firm The Public Sentiment Institute admitted to manipulating survey data in the 2026 Florida Republican gubernatorial primary by shifting voter responses to favor candidate James Fishback.
- TPSI also failed to disclose that the Fishback campaign sponsored the poll, prompting polling aggregator FiftyPlusOne to ban the firm from future analytics.
- Fishback ultimately finished third in the Florida primary election behind Jay Collins and winner Rep. Byron Donalds.
- The scandal closely follows another incident where a fake polling outfit named Median Strategies published fabricated race results as part of a social experiment.
- These back-to-back controversies further threaten public trust in U.S. political polling following notable errors in recent election cycles involving candidates like Donald Trump.

[image caption, as carried on the page:] A person holds up a sign for Florida Republican primary gubernatorial candidate James Fishback during his watch party at the Hilton Tampa Airport Westshore(AP)

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