[6] Polls showing Maduro ahead were predominantly disseminated by media outlets claimed to be pro-Maduro, such as Globovisión, El Universal, Venezuela News [es], Correo del Orinoco and NotiTarde.
Informative Coalition (C-INFORMA) concluded that six out of fourteen evaluated firms, then-recently created and of dubious credibility, had published 37 public opinion studies used in a strategy to manipulate the electoral climate.
[8] Political scientist Jesús Castellanos, an expert in electoral affairs, recognized the existence of a "poll war" involving pro-Maduro firms showing bias and disseminating fake news.
[8] Eugenio Martínez, a journalist and director of the monitoring NGO Votoscopio, argued that there was no poll war per se but rather a misinformation strategy facilitated by the absence of independent media.
[8][7] Venezuelan independent journalism website Efecto Cocuyo published several detailed exposés of pollsters, alleging faulty methodology, systematic bias in favor of Maduro, and repeated dissemination of their polls by pro-Maduro outlets.
[11] Similar issues were found with Data Viva ("recently created, with methodological flaws, omissions about its business identity and a history of low-quality studies")[11][3] and with CMIDE[12][14] and Paramétrica.
[17] According to Efecto Cucuyo, ICS Latam is a polling firm founded in 2012 that had been inactive since November 2023, abruptly returning in July 2024 to publish a survey showing Maduro leading.