Pollster · Commercial firm

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy

Also published as Mason-Dixon, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc..

Research draft

Polls since 2024: 7
Latest poll ended: October 14, 2026
Record vs. results, relative: R+0.9

Polls from the VoteHub polling API, used under CC BY 4.0. Each result links to the pollster's or sponsor's own release. Imported once a day; a poll VoteHub later changes keeps its earlier version on record here.

§1About

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

Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy describes itself on its website as an independent polling and consulting firm and lists offices in Washington, D.C., and Jacksonville, Florida.^1,2 Its website says more than 350 news organizations have used it for election and issue polling, and its services page lists federal, state and local candidates, news media, ballot initiatives and advocacy work among the clients and services it offers.^1,2,3

Kind: Commercial firm^2,3

§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.

News partners

South Dakota News Watch. South Dakota News Watch calls its October 2026 poll by Mason-Dixon the latest South Dakota Poll, sponsored with the Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota, without saying when the series began.^4,5

Polls regularly for

Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota. South Dakota News Watch names the Chiesman Center for Democracy as co-sponsor of the October 2026 South Dakota Poll conducted by Mason-Dixon.⁴

Who paid for its polls

Sponsors named on its polls, most polls first⁶. A party-aligned flag is VoteHub's, per poll.
Sponsor	Polls	Between	Flagged party-aligned
KARE 11	4	June 10, 2026 – October 7, 2026	No
Minnesota Star Tribune	4	June 10, 2026 – October 7, 2026	No
Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication	3	June 10, 2026	No
Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota	2	October 14, 2026	No
South Dakota News Watch	2	October 14, 2026	No

§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.

Says it does no work for parties or candidates. Its home page says it is not a party-affiliated or ideology-oriented polling firm, and its about page says its clients span the political spectrum; its services page lists candidates as clients without naming any party. This rests on its own description.^1,2,3

Of its 7 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁶.

§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^7,8: 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.

Error is the poll's D−R margin minus the result's; D+ means it showed Democrats doing better than they did.
Published as	Polls	Elections	Average miss	Relative to other polls	Typical size of miss	538's last rating
Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy	376	1998–2020	R+0.7	R+0.9	4.6 pts	2.6 of 3

ABC News closed FiveThirtyEight in March 2025; its data stops at the 2022 elections. 2026 results will be added once states certify them.

§52026 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: Even
Relative to other polls of the same races: Even
Typical size of miss: 0.0 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.

§6Its polls

The 7 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	Paid for by	Sample
October 12–October 14, 2026	U.S. Senate · 2026 South Dakota	Mike Rounds 56 · Brian Bengs 37	South Dakota News Watch, Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota	500 LV
October 12–October 14, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 SD-01	Marty Jackley 60 · Nikki Gronli 32	South Dakota News Watch, Chiesman Center for Democracy at the University of South Dakota	500 LV
October 5–October 7, 2026	Governor · 2026 Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar 50 · Lisa Demuth 41	Minnesota Star Tribune, KARE 11	800 LV
June 8–June 10, 2026	Governor · 2026 Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar 48 · Kendall Qualls 37	Minnesota Star Tribune, KARE 11, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication	800 LV
June 8–June 10, 2026	Governor · 2026 Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar 48 · Lisa Demuth 40	Minnesota Star Tribune, KARE 11, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication	800 LV
June 8–June 10, 2026	Governor · 2026 Minnesota	Amy Klobuchar 53 · Mike Lindell 36	Minnesota Star Tribune, KARE 11, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication	800 LV
December 15–December 19, 2024	Governor · 2025 Virginia	Abigail Spanberger 47 · Winsome Earle-Sears 44		625 RV

§7What we looked for and didn't find

No founding year was found on its website, which shows only a 2018 copyright line.
No leader is named on its website, and the Star Tribune pages that would identify one returned HTTP 429 and were not read.
Its Minnesota Poll work for the Star Tribune and KARE 11 could not be confirmed from a primary page: Star Tribune pages returned HTTP 429 and the KARE 11 article returned HTTP 403.
The Virginia Mercury article listed among its sample releases returned HTTP 403.
No source explained the name Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc., which appears in its bylines, or any change of ownership.
No fieldwork or panel vendors were found.
Searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction by the firm; a 2012 blog post about a revised Mason-Dixon poll in Utah is listed under pointers because no statement from the firm or the newspaper was found.