A bogus polling firm has admitted it used fake data to make it appear the U.S. Senate race in deep-red Mississippi is closer than it actually is. 

Wedgewood Polling gave Democrats multipoint leads beginning in June in all the battleground races of Texas, Michigan, Georgia, Maine, Ohio and Kansas, the Washington Times reported. 

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Wednesday that broadcast networks risk violating the FAA's policies against news distortion and its broadcast hoax regulations. Stations broadcasting fake poll data, Carr warned, risk losing their federal licenses.

Wedgewood polls appeared on major aggregation sites, including the New York Times. Analysts with aggregator site FiftyPlusOne attempted to replicate Wedgewood's Mississippi poll and found serious discrepancies. The aggregator confronted Wedgewood and received a profane response. 

Late Tuesday, Wedgewood posted a statement on its now-removed X account admitting to the fake polls and claiming it was all a social experiment. 

“Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverifiable, low-quality methodology. We wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary?” Wedgewood said.

Two months ago, another polling firm, Media Strategies, admitted it fabricated data to show far-left candidates were leading in the Los Angeles mayor's race and the Wisconsin Democratic primary.