Pollster · Commercial firm

New River Strategies

Also published as New River.

Research draft

Polls since 2024: 6
Latest poll ended: October 13, 2026
House effect vs. other polls: D+2.4

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.

New River Strategies describes itself on its website as a data, research and strategy firm for companies, candidates and causes, offering polling, modeling and research through what it calls its Bluebell audience platform.¹ A Columbia University faculty page names Benjy Messner as its founder and describes it as a consulting firm that uses data, analytics and technology to move people to action.² An American Association of Political Consultants conference biography lists Lindsay Vermeyen as co-head of research at the firm.³

Kind: Commercial firm¹

§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

The Cook Political Report (2026–now). The Cook Political Report published a poll of competitive House districts conducted April 7 to 14, 2026 in collaboration with New River Strategies and GS Strategy Group as the first installment of its Battleground District Project, and a Cook topline for an Iowa, Ohio and Texas Senate poll fielded October 9 to 13, 2026 names the same two firms.^4,5

Polls jointly with

GS Strategy Group (2026–now). Cook's April 2026 battleground post and its October 2026 Senate topline both name GS Strategy Group alongside New River Strategies as the firms behind the polls.^4,5

Founded by

Benjy Messner. A Columbia University faculty page names Benjy Messner as the founder of New River Strategies.²

Published with

Names its polls have been published under, alongside other pollsters or news outlets.

New River Strategies/GS Strategy Group: GS Strategy Group · 5 polls listed

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
The Cook Political Report	6	October 13, 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.

Works for Democratic candidates or groups. The firm's homepage does not name a party, so this rests on biographies of its people: the AAPC conference biography of its co-head of research says the firm works with progressive leaders nationwide and that she helps Democrats win tough races, listing recent campaigns including Adam Schiff, Josh Harder and Sara Jacobs, and the Columbia page lists Beto for America and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee among those its founder has worked with, without saying whether that work was through the firm.^1,2,3

Of its 6 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁶.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 2 federal committees reported paying New River Strategies $66,400 for polling, surveys or research^7,8,9,10. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 1 Democratic, 0 Republican, and 1 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

The largest payers, by amount paid for polling, surveys or research. Only federal committees report to the FEC; state and local campaigns, work paid through another consultant, and polling billed as consulting are not here. Matched by the payee name on the filing: NEW RIVER STRATEGIES; NEW RIVER STRATEGIES LLC.
Committee	Kind	Party it reports	Paid for polling	Between
DR. CUELLAR FOR CONGRESS	House campaign	Democratic	$42,400	January 5, 2026 – January 26, 2026
ACLU VOTER EDUCATION FUND	Super PAC	None reported	$24,000	November 8, 2024 – March 26, 2025

§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 once⁶. 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+2.4 (±1.3) 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.

§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.

4 polls of 4 races 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+4.5
Relative to other polls of the same races: D+1.4
Typical size of miss: 5.1 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 6 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	With	Paid for by	Sample
October 9–October 13, 2026	Governor · 2026 Texas	Greg Abbott 48 · Gina Hinojosa 46	GS Strategy Group	The Cook Political Report	934 LV
October 9–October 13, 2026	U.S. Senate · 2026 Texas	James Talarico 49 · Ken Paxton 44	GS Strategy Group	The Cook Political Report	934 LV
October 9–October 13, 2026	Governor · 2026 Iowa	Rob Sand 54 · Zach Lahn 43		The Cook Political Report	602 LV
October 9–October 13, 2026	U.S. Senate · 2026 Iowa	Josh Turek 46 · Ashley Hinson 44 · Thomas Laehn 8	GS Strategy Group	The Cook Political Report	602 LV
October 9–October 13, 2026	Governor · 2026 Ohio	Amy Acton 49 · Vivek Ramaswamy 44 · Don Kissick 6	GS Strategy Group	The Cook Political Report	959 LV
October 9–October 13, 2026	U.S. Senate · 2026 Ohio	Sherrod Brown 49 · Jon Husted 43 · Greg Levy 4 · Bill Redpath 3	GS Strategy Group	The Cook Political Report	959 LV

§7What we looked for and didn't find

Its website names no leaders, location, founding date or clients; leadership comes from a Columbia University faculty page and an AAPC conference biography.
Cook Political Report pages describing the Battleground District Project and its October 2026 Senate analysis returned HTTP 403 and could not be read, so the partnership rests on Cook's April 2026 newsletter post and its October 2026 topline.
No fieldwork or panel vendor is named in the materials read.
Campaigns named in staff biographies were not recorded as firm clients because the biographies do not say the work was done through New River Strategies.
A Fort Lauderdale business at newriverstrategies.com with the same name does government relations and federal contracting and appears to be a different firm; it was not used.
On 2026-11-06 AAPOR's statements list (five pages), FiftyPlusOne's August 2026 notice suspending pollsters and web searches for court cases, regulator actions, aggregator statements and retractions or corrections naming New River Strategies or the Cook Political Report Battleground District Project found none.