Pollster · Commercial firm

MassINC Polling Group

Research draft
Polls since 2024
2
Latest poll ended
September 22, 2026
Record vs. results, relative
R+1.4

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.

The MassINC Polling Group is a Boston polling firm that its about page says was founded in 2010 and is a for-profit subsidiary of MassINC, which the page calls an independent, nonpartisan policy think tank.1 The about page names Steve Koczela as president and Rich Parr as vice president, and a November 2010 MassINC article says the group opened that August as MassINC's start-up subsidiary.1,2 Its September 2026 ballot questions poll of 800 likely Massachusetts voters was collected online September 14 to 22, 2026, and the topline says it was conducted by the MassINC Polling Group and sponsored by CommonWealth Beacon.3

Kind
Commercial firm1
Founded
20101,2

§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.

Owned by

  • MassINC (2010–now). The about page says the MassINC Polling Group is a for-profit subsidiary of MassINC, and a 2010 MassINC article calls it MassINC's start-up subsidiary.1,2

News partners

  • WBUR (2011–now). The group wrote in July 2018 that its polling partnership with WBUR, Boston's NPR station, began in 2011 and was renewed through June 2020, and its about page describes polling for WBUR in the past tense.1,4
  • CommonWealth Beacon (2025–now). The group's list of work shows statewide surveys with CommonWealth Beacon in September 2025 and September 2026, and CommonWealth Beacon's about page says it is published by MassINC, which conducts surveys through a for-profit polling subsidiary.3,5,6

Polls regularly for

  • Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (2025–now). The group's list of work shows competitiveness research with the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation in September 2025 and a second annual survey in September 2026.5

Led by

  • Steve Koczela (2010–now). The about page names Steve Koczela as president, and the 2010 MassINC article identifies him as president at the group's launch.1,2

Who paid for its polls

Sponsors named on its polls, most polls first7. A party-aligned flag is VoteHub's, per poll.
SponsorPollsBetweenFlagged party-aligned
CommonWealth Beacon2September 22, 2026No

§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 about page describes the parent, MassINC, as nonpartisan but does not say whether the polling group itself works for candidates or parties, and it names no campaign or party clients.1

Of its 2 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor7.

§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 data8,9: 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.

Error is the poll's D−R margin minus the result's; D+ means it showed Democrats doing better than they did.
Published asPollsElectionsAverage missRelative to other pollsTypical size of miss538's last rating
MassINC Polling Group142010–2020R+2.1R+1.42.6 pts2.8 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.

§5Its polls

The 2 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the fieldQuestionResultWithPaid for bySample
September 14–September 22, 2026Governor · 2026 MassachusettsMaura Healy 51 · Michael Minogue 30 · Andrea James 3CommonWealth Beacon800 LV
September 14–September 22, 2026U.S. Senate · 2026 MassachusettsEd Markey 52 · John Deaton 26 · Joe Tache 2 · Shriya Ayyadurai 2CommonWealth Beacon800 LV

§6What we looked for and didn't find

  • No end date for the WBUR partnership was found beyond the renewal through June 2020.
  • No fieldwork or panel vendor is named on the about page or in the September 2026 topline beyond online interviewing.
  • Searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction; a 2022 news report about a candidate left off a poll it published is listed under pointers.