George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government

§1About

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

George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government co-sponsors and co-funds the Washington Post-Schar School poll with The Washington Post, according to the methodology of an October 2025 Virginia poll.² According to The Fourth Estate, George Mason's student newspaper, the partnership was announced in November 2016 after Schar School dean Mark Rozell approached the Post, and Mason faculty help design the surveys.³

Kind

Academic²

§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.

• Washington Post/George Mason University: The Washington Post · 8 polls listed
• The Washington Post/George Mason University School of Policy and Government: The Washington Post · 5 polls listed
• The Washington Post/George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government: The Washington Post · 4 polls listed

§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.

Doesn’t say whom it works for. The poll methodology read describes joint sponsorship by the Post and the Schar School and says nothing about work for candidates or parties.²

Of its 17 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁴.

§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 once⁴. 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+3.8 (±2.1) across 6 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 6 contests.

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^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.

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+9.0

Relative to other polls of the same races

Even

Typical size of miss

9.0 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

• The Schar School site (schar.gmu.edu) and washingtonpost.com refused automated requests, and older gmu.edu announcement pages now redirect, so current leadership, the poll team and 2026 methodology statements were not read; facts rest on one 2025 poll document hosted by Decision Desk HQ and a 2017 student newspaper report.
• No founding year for the Schar School was found.
• The fieldwork vendor is recorded from one 2025 poll; vendors for other polls were not checked.
• No non-news clients, co-pollsters, campaign or party clients were found.
• 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.