Pollster · Nonprofit

Pew Research Center

AAPOR Transparency Initiative since January 20, 20152Research draft
Polls since 2024
14
Latest poll ended
October 4, 2026
Record vs. results, relative
D+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.

Pew Research Center is a research organization in Washington, D.C. that describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that does not take policy positions, led by president Michael Dimock and a nine-member volunteer board.3 Its history page says it grew out of a 1990 Times Mirror research project that The Pew Charitable Trusts began sponsoring in 1996, and that the Trusts established the Center as a subsidiary in 2004 with Andrew Kohut as its first president.4 Its US surveys draw on its American Trends Panel; an October 2026 report surveyed 5,062 adults, 3,917 of them registered voters, from September 28 to October 4, 2026.5,6

Kind
Nonprofit3
Founded
20044

§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

  • The Pew Charitable Trusts (2004–now). Pew Research Center says it is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder, which established it in 2004.3,4

Fieldwork or panel by

  • SSRS (2024–now). Pew says it currently works with the survey vendor SSRS to recruit, manage and survey members of the American Trends Panel.6
  • Ipsos (2018–2024). Pew says Ipsos managed the American Trends Panel from 2018 to 2024, after Abt and GfK.6

Led by

  • Michael Dimock (2014-10–now). Its history page says Michael Dimock was named president in October 2014, and its About page names him as president.3,4

§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 About page says it maintains strict impartiality and never aligns with any political group, candidate or ideology.3

Of its 14 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.

Net approval: Donald Trump
−11.2 points (±1.3) across 7 polls, against other polls of the same question.

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 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
Pew Research Center251998–2016D+2.0D+0.94.3 pts2.5 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.

§6Documented findings

Why this matters: Only findings by a professional body, a court, a regulator, an aggregator's own published decision, or the pollster itself are listed, each cited to that decision.

  • Pew Research Center, June 2024. Pew revised a June 2024 report on Black Americans' views of U.S. institutions, dropping the term racial conspiracy theories and updating the headline. Its editor's note says the term had been editorial shorthand for a complex and mixed set of findings and that using it distorted rather than clarified the point of the study; the changes it lists are a new headline, explanatory paragraphs, added context and focus-group quotes.10

§7Its polls

The 16 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the fieldQuestionResultWithPaid for bySample
September 30–October 4, 2026Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 68 · Approve 305,062 A
September 30–October 4, 2026Generic congressional ballot · 2026Dem 44 · Rep 363,917 RV
April 20–April 26, 2026Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 64 · Approve 345,103 A
January 20–January 26, 2026Favorability · Donald TrumpUnfavorable 58 · Favorable 408,512 A
January 20–January 26, 2026Favorability · JD VanceUnfavorable 52 · Favorable 384,250 A
January 20–January 26, 2026Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 61 · Approve 378,512 A
September 22–September 28, 2025Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 58 · Approve 403,445 A
September 22–September 28, 2025Favorability · JD VanceUnfavorable 51 · Favorable 401,718 A
September 22–September 28, 2025Favorability · Donald TrumpUnfavorable 58 · Favorable 403,445 A
August 4–August 10, 2025Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 60 · Approve 383,554 A
June 2–June 8, 2025Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 58 · Approve 415,044 A
April 7–April 13, 2025Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 59 · Approve 403,589 A
January 27–February 2, 2025Favorability · JD VanceUnfavorable 45 · Favorable 425,086 A
January 27–February 2, 2025Job approval · Donald TrumpDisapprove 51 · Approve 475,086 A
August 26–September 2, 2024Favorability · JD VanceUnfavorable 45 · Favorable 398,044 RV
August 26–September 2, 2024Favorability · JD VanceUnfavorable 42 · Favorable 349,720 A

§8What we looked for and didn't find

  • No standing news partners were found; Pew publishes its own reports.
  • Funders other than The Pew Charitable Trusts are not named on the pages read.
  • The methodology link on the October 2026 report returned a 2020 panel wave, so the current panel vendor rests on Pew's general American Trends Panel page.
  • The recorded finding is a revision of a report's wording, not of its data; Pew's routine errata notices were not reviewed one by one.
  • Beyond the finding recorded, searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, or aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls.