Harper Polling

§1About

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

Harper Polling is a public opinion and market research firm whose website lists offices in York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. and Chicago, and says it serves campaigns, advocacy organizations and companies.^1,2 Its about page names Brock McCleary as owner and pollster and says he founded the firm in 2013, that Cygnal acquired it in 2020, and that it has since left Cygnal to become an independent firm again.²

Kind

Commercial firm²

Founded

2013²

§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.

• Harper Polling/Clarity Campaign Labs: Clarity Campaign Labs
• Public Policy Polling/Harper Polling: Public Policy Polling

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 Republican candidates or groups. Harper's pages do not describe its party orientation in words; the party committee and campaigns it names as clients (the NRCC, Trump 2020, Vivek 2024 and Glenn Youngkin's Virginia campaign) are all Republican, and it names no Democratic committee or campaign. This rests on the clients it names.^1,2

• National Republican Congressional Committee. Harper's homepage shows the NRCC among the logos of committees, campaigns and causes it says trust the firm, and its about page mentions McCleary's earlier work at the NRCC.^1,2
• Donald J. Trump 2020 reelection campaign (2020–now). Harper's homepage shows a Trump 2020 logo among its client logos, and its about page says McCleary was a pollster for President Donald J. Trump's reelection.^1,2
• Vivek 2024 (2024–now). Harper's homepage shows a Vivek 2024 logo among its client logos.¹
• Glenn Youngkin campaign for governor of Virginia. Harper's about page mentions work on Glenn Youngkin's campaign in Virginia.²

Of its 9 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁴.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 15 federal committees reported paying Harper Polling $1,133,354 for polling, surveys or research^5,6,7,8. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 0 Democratic, 12 Republican, and 3 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 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+2.2 (±4.0) across 5 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 1 contest.

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^9,10: 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+9.6

Relative to other polls of the same races

R+1.7

Typical size of miss

9.6 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

• Its own site gives two founding years: the about page says 2013 and the footer reads 2012 to 2026.
• The year Harper left Cygnal was not stated on the pages read.
• No start date was found for the Carolina Journal arrangement; the Carolina Journal poll pages read do not name the firm conducting the poll, so the relationship rests on Harper's own news page.
• No fieldwork or panel vendors were named; its pages describe methods only in general terms.