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

• 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.

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