brilliant corners Research & Strategies: polls, partners and record

§1Whom 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, by its federal filings. From 2023 through 2026, 6 federal committees reporting Democratic affiliation paid it, and none reporting Republican^1,2,3,4.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 11 federal committees reported paying brilliant corners Research & Strategies $1,488,117 for polling, surveys or research^1,2,3,4. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 6 Democratic, 0 Republican, and 5 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

The largest payers, by amount paid for polling, surveys or research. Only federal committees report to the FEC; state and local campaigns, work paid through another consultant, and polling billed as consulting are not here. Matched by the payee name on the filing: BRILLIANT CORNERS RESEARCH & STRATEGIES.
Committee	Kind	Party it reports	Paid for polling	Between
BLACKPAC	Super PAC	None reported	$924,676	June 7, 2023 – June 30, 2026
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS PAC	PAC	None reported	$140,875	May 3, 2023 – October 1, 2026
AMANDA EDWARDS FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Democratic	$121,100	December 19, 2023 – December 17, 2025
JANELLE BYNUM FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Democratic	$82,080	March 7, 2024 – October 31, 2024
LAUREN UNDERWOOD FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Democratic	$56,600	August 15, 2024
TOGETHER FOR PROGRESS 2024	Super PAC	None reported	$44,600	April 1, 2024
DNC SERVICES CORP / DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE	Party committee	Democratic	$42,756	September 29, 2025 – January 15, 2026
WALA FOR MARYLAND	House campaign	Democratic	$38,800	April 17, 2026
EMILYS LIST	PAC	None reported	$19,530	March 7, 2024 – May 3, 2024
NEW DEMOCRAT COALITION ACTION FUND	PAC	None reported	$12,100	May 1, 2024 – October 22, 2024
BECAUSE WOMEN CAN PAC	PAC	Democratic	$5,000	December 17, 2024

§2Record 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^5,6: 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.

Error is the poll's D−R margin minus the result's; D+ means it showed Democrats doing better than they did.
Published as	Polls	Elections	Average miss	Relative to other polls	Typical size of miss	538's last rating
brilliant corners Research & Strategies	1	2020	D+12.3	D+3.8	12.3 pts	1.0 of 3 · 1% partisan work

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