Data for Progress

§1About

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

Data for Progress describes itself on its website as proudly progressive and says it equips the progressive movement with the data and insights it needs to win, advising progressive organizations, members of Congress and movement leaders.^2,3 Its mission page says its work is supported by Data for Progress Education Fund, a 501(c)(3), and Data for Progress, Inc., a 501(c)(4), and its team page names Ryan O'Donnell as executive director.^3,4 Its Idealist profile gives Washington, D.C., as its location.⁵ A poll release posted by Way to Win in August 2026 says Data for Progress conducted the poll and lists Way to Lead PAC, Democracy Alliance and Democracy Strategy Partners as its sponsors.⁶ Its October 2026 Alaska release says the survey used SMS and web panel respondents and names no client.⁷

Kind

Nonprofit³

§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.

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, by its federal filings. From 2023 through 2026, 5 federal committees reporting Democratic affiliation paid it, and none reporting Republican^10,11,12,13. Its website describes it as proudly progressive and says it serves the progressive movement, while its Our Impact page says it is willing to challenge Democrats or Republicans; the pages read do not name party committees or campaigns as clients.^2,3,8

Of its 11 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 3 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁹.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 13 federal committees reported paying Data for Progress $398,190 for polling, surveys or research^10,11,12,13. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 5 Democratic, 0 Republican, 1 another party, and 7 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

§4Record 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^14,15: 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.

§5Its polls

§6What we looked for and didn't find

• No founding year was found on its own pages; secondary sources give 2018 but were not used.
• No standing news partner was found.
• No fieldwork or panel vendor is named in the Alaska release read.
• 314 Action and Way to Lead PAC appear as sponsors on some of its polls in our data; no standing arrangement with either was confirmed.
• A 2022 FiveThirtyEight article, seen only in search results, is reported to say FiveThirtyEight would keep Data for Progress polls in its averages while excluding polls conducted by former executive director Sean McElwee after reports that he bet on elections. FiveThirtyEight pages were not read in this pass, and that statement did not exclude the firm, so it is not recorded as a finding.
• Searches for AAPOR statements, court cases, regulator actions and retractions found nothing naming the firm.