Beacon Research

§1About

✎ Drafted by AI from the public sources cited. Each sentence links to its source.

Beacon Research, LLC is a Boston polling and focus group firm whose website lists Chris Anderson as founder and president.^1,2 A February 2019 Fox News release says the firm was previously named Anderson Robbins Research and took the Beacon Research name in 2019.³ Its website says it does research for political candidates, ballot campaigns, advocacy groups, labor unions, nonprofits, corporations and foundations.⁴

Kind

Works for one party⁴

§2Who it works with

Why this matters: Owners, news partners and the firms behind a poll's interviews shape what gets asked, how, and what gets published.

Published with

Names its polls have been published under, alongside other pollsters or news outlets.

• Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research: Shaw & Co. Research · 105 polls listed
• Cygnal/Beacon Research: Cygnal · 2 polls listed

Who paid for its polls

§3Whom it works for

Why this matters: A firm that also works for one party's campaigns can still publish accurate polls, but readers deserve to know.

Works for Democratic candidates or groups. The Beacon Research site calls the firm the Democratic pollster on the Fox News Poll and lists Democratic candidates and party committees among its political clients, along with independent Senator Angus King and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute.⁴

• Elizabeth Warren. The Beacon Research site says it worked on the U.S. Senate campaigns of Elizabeth Warren in 2012, 2018 and 2024.⁴
• Maura Healey (2014–now). The site says the firm has provided research and advice to Maura Healey since her 2014 campaign for Massachusetts attorney general, through her 2022 election as governor.⁴
• Tom Steyer 2020 presidential campaign. The site says Beacon Research was the lead polling firm for the 2020 presidential campaign of Tom Steyer.⁴
• Angus King. The site says the firm worked with U.S. Senator Angus King, a Maine independent, when he sought a third term.⁴
• New York Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee. The site says the firm has advised the New York Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee for more than 25 years.⁴
• Massachusetts Democratic Party. The site lists the Massachusetts Democratic Party among its clients.⁴

Of its 73 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁷.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 3 federal committees reported paying Beacon Research $281,500 for polling, surveys or research^8,9,10,11. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 2 Democratic, 0 Republican, 1 another party, and 0 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

§4How its numbers compare with other polls

Why this matters: A firm whose polls run steadily to one side of everyone else's is worth reading alongside others.

Each of its polls since the 2024 election is compared with other pollsters' polls of the same question whose field period ended within 14 days, each other pollster counted once⁷. The figure is the average gap, with a 95% margin. This compares it with other polls, not with the truth: the others can be the ones that are off.

Party margin

D+0.3 (±1.5) across 25 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 13 contests.

Net approval: Donald Trump

−1.1 points (±1.2) across 13 polls, against other polls of the same question.

Net favorability: Donald Trump

−4.1 points (±1.6) across 5 polls, against other polls of the same question.

D+ means its polls showed Democrats doing better than other polls did; R+, Republicans. A figure from fewer than 5 polls isn't shown.

§5Record against results

Why this matters: The one test that doesn't depend on other polls: how close a firm's final polls came to what voters did.

From FiveThirtyEight's final public data^12,13: general-election polls between a Democrat and a Republican in the last three weeks before each election, compared with the certified result. FiveThirtyEight rated each name polls were published under separately. Across all 8,957 such polls, the average miss was D+0.7, so the relative figure takes out the misses every pollster shared that year.

ABC News closed FiveThirtyEight in March 2025; its data stops at the 2022 elections. 2026 results will be added once states certify them.

§62026 record against the count

Why this matters: How close this pollster's last 2026 polls came to how people voted, measured the way FiveThirtyEight measured earlier elections.

4 polls of 4 races between a Democrat and a Republican, with field periods ending in the 21 days before November 3, 2026, compared with each race's count. Some of those races are still being counted, so these figures use the unofficial count and will change until states certify.

Average miss

R+7.5

Relative to other polls of the same races

R+1.6

Typical size of miss

7.6 pts

Error is the poll's D−R margin minus the count's, as shares of all votes in the race; D+ means it showed Democrats doing better than they did. From fewer than 5 polls, so read it as a few data points, not a pattern.

§7Its polls

§8What we looked for and didn't find

• No founding year found for Beacon Research or for Anderson Robbins Research.
• No ownership or parent company found; its site names none.
• Its home page shows client logos as images; only clients named in page text are recorded.
• The Fox News methodology statement page (updated September 2026) did not name Braun Research in our reading; the fieldwork credit comes from the February 2019 and May 2026 toplines.
• Findings search: web searches combining the firm name with AAPOR, FiveThirtyEight, Silver Bulletin, exclusion and retraction terms found nothing that fits the finding rules; the Silver Bulletin January 2026 ratings page names no banned pollsters; FiveThirtyEight pages now redirect to ABC News and could not be read; RealClearPolitics, The New York Times, Cook Political Report, Decision Desk HQ and VoteHub policy pages were not reviewed one by one.
• Court records: a web search limited to CourtListener and Justia found no case naming the firm; PACER and state court dockets were not searched.