A self-described US polling firm whose data was tracked by political campaigns and mainstream media has admitted that its polls were fabricated, in the second such scandal to stir controversy ahead of…

Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow said after the group’s “poll” in late June showed her support in the single digits, she said “donations dried up,” volunteers were “devastated,” and the media “hounded” her “with calls to drop out.”

“It killed us,” McMorrow wrote on X.

The revelations come amid warnings that AI-powered tools were enabling the fakery.

“It’s getting easier to conduct low-quality polls – or fake them altogether,” FiftyPlusOne said.

Sophisticated AI tools were also making it difficult to identify phony pollsters and made-up data, the American Association for Public Opinion Research said in a statement.