High Point University Survey Research Center

§1About

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

The Survey Research Center at High Point University in North Carolina runs the HPU Poll, which its site says has surveyed North Carolina and beyond on public affairs since its first poll in March 2010 and reports results as a public service.^2,3 Its site lists Martin J. Kifer, chair of political science, as executive director, and says the center has 42 interviewing stations.^3,4 Recent HPU Poll releases say the center drafts the questionnaire and YouGov interviews respondents from its online panels, and an August 2026 memo names High Point University as the survey's sponsor and funder.^5,6

Kind

Academic³

§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.

• High Point University Survey Research Center/YouGov: YouGov · 2 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 center's pages read say it reports results as a public service and funds its own polls, but do not say whether it works for candidates or parties.^2,6

Of its 21 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁷.

§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 once⁷. 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+0.3 (±3.6) across 6 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 2 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^8,9: 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+5.6

Relative to other polls of the same races

D+2.3

Typical size of miss

5.6 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

• No founding year for the Survey Research Center was found; the first HPU Poll in March 2010 is the earliest date given.
• No current standing news partner was found; the HPU Poll page links older releases whose titles appear to name the News & Record, but no description or dates of that arrangement were found, so none is recorded.
• No start date for the YouGov arrangement was found, and earlier fieldwork arrangements were not traced.
• 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.