GBAO

§1About

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

GBAO describes itself on its website as a public opinion research and political strategy firm, with an office at 1701 K Street NW in Washington, D.C., and offices in Wilmington, Delaware, Chicago and Albuquerque.^1,2 Its team page lists 27 people without titles, and its clients page says the American Association of Political Consultants named it 2022's Pollster of the Year.^2,3

Kind

Works for one party^1,3

§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.

• Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/GBAO: Fabrizio, Lee & Associates · 4 polls listed
• Echelon Insights/GBAO: Echelon Insights · 2 polls listed
• Global Strategy Group/GBAO (Navigator Research): Global Strategy Group, Navigator Research

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. This rests on the clients GBAO names: its clients page shows candidates and officeholders including Senators Raphael Warnock, John Fetterman, Ruben Gallego, Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján, whom the Senate lists as Democrats, along with unions and advocacy groups, and names no Republican candidate or party committee. Its site does not describe a party affiliation in words.^3,7

• Raphael Warnock. GBAO's home and clients pages show Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia among its clients.^1,3
• John Fetterman. GBAO's clients page shows John Fetterman among its clients.³
• Ruben Gallego. GBAO's home and clients pages show Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona among its clients.^1,3

Of its 22 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 8 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁶.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 36 federal committees reported paying GBAO $6,562,307 for polling, surveys or research^8,9,10,11. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 24 Democratic, 0 Republican, 1 another party, and 11 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 once⁶. 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+1.5 (±1.5) across 6 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 4 contests.

Net approval: Donald Trump

−0.5 points (±1.3) across 6 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.

One poll of one race 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+9.7

Relative to other polls of the same races

D+0.1

Typical size of miss

9.7 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 was found on its website; a business directory gives 2011, which was not confirmed on a primary page.
• Its team page gives no titles, so no leaders are recorded; Margie Omero's title comes from the Navigator site.
• No ownership or parent organization was found.
• Its home page features NYT Opinion Focus Groups and its clients page shows The New York Times, but neither describes the work or its dates, so no media partnership is recorded.
• Our poll records show The Wall Street Journal as sponsor of Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/GBAO polls, but wsj.com and politico.com refused automated requests and no primary statement of a standing Journal arrangement with GBAO was found.
• Echelon Insights/GBAO appears on more than one poll in our records, but only the December 2025 AARP survey was read, so no standing co-pollster arrangement is recorded.
• No fieldwork or panel vendor was found.
• No party committee clients were found on its site.
• Findings search: web searches combining the name with AAPOR, aggregator exclusion, court, regulator and retraction terms found nothing that fits the finding rules, and AAPOR's statements page names none of this batch's firms.
• Court records were checked only through web searches; PACER and state court dockets were not searched.