The Public Sentiment Institute

§1About

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

The Public Sentiment Institute (TPSI) publishes its polls on a Substack newsletter that describes it as independent research on public opinion, political finance and institutional accountability; the pages read name no staff and give no location.¹ Its first poll, a Florida survey of 200 adults on the Pollfish panel, was published on February 21, 2026.² A GoFundMe page created on February 26, 2026 lists John Mangione of Pompano Beach, Florida, as organizer of a fundraiser for a planned TPSI national poll on Pollfish; it does not say what role the organizer has at the institute.³ A May 2026 TPSI release lists The Great Lakes Perspective as the sponsor of a Wisconsin poll fielded May 13 to 15 on the Pollfish online panel.⁴

§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.

Who paid for its polls

§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 TPSI pages read do not say whether it works for candidates or parties, and a GoFundMe page for its national poll says that poll was not funded by a party or PAC. FiftyPlusOne reported a 2026 payment to TPSI from a Republican primary campaign, citing Florida campaign finance records that were not read for this entry.^1,3,6

• James Fishback for Governor (2026-06–now). According to FiftyPlusOne, Florida campaign finance records show that the campaign of James Fishback, a candidate in the 2026 Republican primary for governor, paid TPSI $1,575 for polling on June 9, 2026, and TPSI's June 10 and June 30 Florida surveys did not disclose a sponsor.⁶

Of its 26 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 4 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁵.

§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 once⁵. 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+5.2 (±2.6) across 5 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.

§5Documented 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.

• The Public Sentiment Institute, August 2026. In an accuracy review of its final survey before the August 18, 2026 Florida Republican primary for governor, TPSI said its published forecast was wrong and that, after collecting the data, it had moved some respondents who chose Jay Collins, those whose broader profile it judged closer to a competing coalition, toward James Fishback because of a suspected data problem that its own data did not support. It called this the most consequential error in the project, said it was retiring the adjustment, and said a respondent's stated preference would not be reassigned again.⁷
• FiftyPlusOne, August 20, 2026. FiftyPlusOne announced on August 20, 2026 that it was permanently banning future TPSI data and removing all TPSI polls from its website, citing TPSI's admission that it changed the vote choices of some respondents who picked Jay Collins to James Fishback, which FiftyPlusOne treated as falsifying data, and a payment from the Fishback campaign that TPSI's surveys did not disclose.⁶
• Decision Desk HQ, August 21, 2026. Decision Desk HQ's polling methodology page, last updated August 21, 2026, names The Public Sentiment Institute as an example of a pollster whose polls are kept in its archive for reference but left out of its averages because they fail its inclusion criteria; it does not say which criterion.⁸

§6Its polls

§7What we looked for and didn't find

• No staff, location, legal form or founding date was found; its Substack pages name no people, so kind and founded are left empty.
• The Florida campaign finance filing cited by FiftyPlusOne was not read; the Florida Division of Elections candidate page does not list expenditures directly.
• VoteHub's statement that TPSI had been left out of its averages for months was made in a social media post reported by The Daily Wire, so it is listed only as a pointer.
• The date Decision Desk HQ began excluding TPSI was not found.
• The Daily Wire reported that TPSI's accuracy review acknowledged leaving out its funding source; the version of the review read does not contain that statement.
• No standing news partner or non-news client was found.