Kid Rock Leads in Poll … There’s Just One Problem

By Steve Berman

https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/889296189312708609

But there’s one problem with the poll. It’s almost certainly fake. Young Conservatives ran with the headline but acknowledged the same problem professional poll-watchers noticed.

The polling firm “Delphi Analytica” has a website registered just two weeks ago, using a GoDaddy privacy service. That bodes ill in the legitimacy department.

Website was registered 2 weeks ago by proxy & they released 2 polls. This #MISen one and a "Midwest" poll.

— Aaron Booth (@ActorAaronBooth) July 24, 2017

https://twitter.com/B_M_Finnigan/status/889320645535780864

Folks, be careful retweeting polls from pollsters you've never heard of. It's easy to start a website, post a fake "poll" and get clicks.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 24, 2017

This scam has been going on for a long time (see e.g. Research 2000/Strategic Vision) but is increasing—now happening several times a year.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 24, 2017

I ran a “whois” on the site delphianalytica.org and confirmed those results.

We don’t know who set up the website, but we know it’s probably not kosher, poll-wise. Now, that doesn’t mean the poll results aren’t completely unbelievable. In fact, Jordan Gehrke laid out the path for Kid Rock to win the seat, writing in The Federalist. A lot of that involves Trump-like tactics.

Earned media: He will get so much attention from the press. Like Donald Trump before him, Kid Rock will be the most interesting candidate in America from the sound of the opening gun. People will want to watch what he does, so CNN and company will keep the cameras on him. And they’ll use his first-place standing in the early polls to justify the ratings-grab. That’s what 2016 taught us.

A fake poll website isn’t designed to actually sell the fake news it spouts, it’s designed to get news coverage, which it did. Twitchy and Young Conservatives picked up the poll story from Political Wire—and that tweet is now deleted (or “mooched” to coin a term). They’ve pulled the story.

I don’t know where Kaegan Goddard got the story yet, but I suspect someone planted it.

But who cares? Earned. Media.

The new political theory in the Trump Age: Name recognition + earned media + outsider status = winning. We’ll see if it plays out.

For now, I’d take Nate Silver’s advice. Be very careful what you retweet, or publish.