Pollster · News outlet

Rasmussen Reports

Research draft

Polls since 2024: 4
Latest poll ended: May 20, 2026
Record vs. results, relative: R+1.3

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.

Rasmussen Reports describes itself as a nonpartisan electronic media company that collects, publishes and distributes public opinion polling, running national tracking surveys every night and adding state and other polls regularly.¹ Its FAQ says it is owned by Noson Lawen Partners, a US private equity firm, and run by Ted Carroll of Noson Lawen Partners, managing editor Robert Stacy McCain and director of polling operations Mark Mitchell; a 2019 company page says it is based in Asbury Park, New Jersey.^2,3 The FAQ says it collects data with automated calls to randomly selected landline numbers and draws a sizable share of its daily sample from online panels, and that founder Scott Rasmussen left in July 2013.² Its pages say it pays for its own polls and earns revenue from subscriptions, sponsorships and advertising.^3,4

Kind: News outlet¹
Founded: 2003-10³

§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

Noson Lawen Partners. The FAQ says Noson Lawen Partners owns Rasmussen Reports, and the 2019 company page calls it the majority investor and controlling shareholder.^2,3

Fieldwork or panel by

Pulse Opinion Research. A 2019 Rasmussen Reports page calls Pulse Opinion Research its commercial polling operation and says Pulse conducts its automated survey calls; the current FAQ does not mention Pulse.^2,3

Founded by

Scott Rasmussen (2003). The 2019 company page says Scott Rasmussen founded the company in October 2003, and the FAQ says he left in July 2013.^2,3

Led by

Ted Carroll. The FAQ says the company is run by Ted Carroll, president and co-founder of Noson Lawen Partners, with its managing editor and director of polling operations.²
Mark Mitchell. The FAQ names Mark Mitchell as director of polling operations and one of the people who run the company.²

§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 calls it a nonpartisan media company, and its FAQ says it has a bipartisan staff, does not endorse political philosophies, parties or special interest groups, and does not give money to candidates or parties. This rests on the firm's own description; the pages read name no campaign or party clients.^1,2

Of its 4 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 1 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁵.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 2 federal committees reported paying Rasmussen Reports $8,500 for polling, surveys or research^6,7,8,9. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 0 Democratic, 1 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: RASMUSSEN REPORTS; RASMUSSEN REPORTS, LLC.
Committee	Kind	Party it reports	Paid for polling	Between
LYNCH FOR SENATE	Senate campaign	Republican	$5,000	May 27, 2025
DELIVERING FOR AMERICA PAC	Super PAC	None reported	$3,500	February 10, 2026

§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^10,11: 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
Scott Rasmussen (Rasmussen Reports)	499	2000–2012	R+2.3	R+1.3	4.7 pts	Not graded (inactive)
Rasmussen Reports	137	2012–2022	D+1.7	R+0.7	4.8 pts	Left out of the final ratings

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

§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.

538 (ABC News), March 2024. According to Political Wire, which quoted The Washington Post, 538 stopped including Rasmussen Reports polls in its polling averages and forecasts in March 2024. In June 2023 Rasmussen Reports had published an email from the 538 editorial director of data analytics saying 538 was considering a formal ban, asking about the firm's methods and its ties to some outlets, and saying a ban would also remove it from historical averages and pollster ratings.^4,12
Silver Bulletin, January 22, 2026. Silver Bulletin's polling-average methodology, dated January 22, 2026 and read on 2026-11-06, says it currently classifies Rasmussen Reports polls as partisan, giving as its reason that the firm has a history of working with Republican campaigns on some of its surveys without fully disclosing those relationships. The page says polls classified as partisan are handled under different house-effect assumptions in its generic ballot average, and that its approval averages make no partisan distinction.¹³

§6Its polls

The 4 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	Paid for by	Sample
May 13–May 20, 2026	Generic congressional ballot · 2026	Dem 47 · Rep 41		2,161 LV
January 25–February 27, 2026	Presidential primary · 2028 Democratic	Kamala Harris 34 · Gavin Newsom 20 · Josh Shapiro 10 · Pete Buttigieg 10 · Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 7 · Cory Booker 6 · 1 more		1,155 LV
January 7–January 8, 2026	Generic congressional ballot · 2026	Dem 47 · Rep 41		2,273 LV
October 8–October 9, 2025	Governor · 2025 New Jersey	Mikie Sherrill 46 · Jack Ciattarelli 40	Republican-aligned sponsor	955 LV

§7What we looked for and didn't find

The 538 statement announcing the March 2024 decision was not read: fivethirtyeight.com pages are not used in this pass and The Washington Post report returned HTTP 403, so the finding rests on Political Wire's excerpt and on the 2023 email Rasmussen Reports published.
Its current pages do not say whether Pulse Opinion Research still conducts its fieldwork or name any online panel vendor.
No standing news partners or non-news clients were found on its pages.
Beyond the finding recorded, searches and AAPOR's statements page found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, or retraction by the firm.