Daily Kos Defrauded by Pollster Research 2000, Markos Alleges

Daily Kos had until recently been sponsoring political polling by pollster Research 2000. Founder Markos Moulitsas broke off the relationship several weeks ago. Today, armed with evidence of significant statistical irregularity, he has released his conclusion that Daily Kos was defrauded by Research 2000 and has renounced the results of polls that Daily Kos commissioned.

We contracted with Research 2000 to conduct polling and to provide us with the results of their surveys. Based on the report of the statisticians, it's clear that we did not get what we paid for. We were defrauded by Research 2000, and while we don't know if some or all of the data was fabricated or manipulated beyond recognition, we know we can't trust it. […]

While the investigation didn't look at all of Research 2000 polling conducted for us, fact is I no longer have any confidence in any of it, and neither should anyone else. I ask that all poll tracking sites remove any Research 2000 polls commissioned by us from their databases. I hereby renounce any post we've written based exclusively on Research 2000 polling.

Also posted on Daily Kos is an article by Mark Grebner, Michael Weissman and Jonathan Weissman systematically laying out the serious statistical oddities in Research 2000's tracking poll data. Based on this information, Daily Kos will be filing suit against Research 2000.

In past postings, other FDL writers and I have made reference to Research 2000 polls commissioned by Daily Kos.