Pollster · Academic

Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research

Also published as Roanoke College.

AAPOR Transparency Initiative since July 30, 20152Research draft
Polls since 2024
6
Latest poll ended
October 27, 2025
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.

The Institute for Policy and Opinion Research is a unit of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia; its about page says it was founded at the college in 1983 as the Center for Community Research and ran election-season political polls and quarterly consumer sentiment polls in Virginia.3,4 Its institute page says IPOR conducted regular surveys from 1983 to 2026 and now presents an archive of past polls, the latest a Virginia consumer sentiment report for August 2026.5 A March 2021 college news item says David Taylor succeeded Harry Wilson as director that year; its August 2025 and February 2026 releases name Wilson, professor emeritus of political science, as interim director and say Roanoke College pays for the poll as a public service.4,6,7

Kind
Academic3
Founded
19833

§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.

Part of

  • Roanoke College. Its about page and poll releases describe IPOR as an institute at Roanoke College, and the releases say the college pays for the poll.3,4

Fieldwork or panel by

  • Siena Research Institute (2025–now). Its August 2025 and February 2026 releases say the Siena Research Institute at Siena University collected all the data by phone, text and online panel, the 2026 release adding that the institute's work is powered by ReconMR.4,7
  • Cint USA (2025–now). The same releases say Cint USA facilitated the online panel portion of the sample.4,7

Led by

  • Harry Wilson. Its August 2025 and February 2026 releases name Harry Wilson as interim director.4,7

Published with

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

  • Reconnect Research/Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research: Reconnect Research

§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 releases describe IPOR as an independent, nonpartisan research institute and its about page calls it nonpartisan and nonideological; the about page says it worked with government agencies, nonprofits and private businesses and does not mention candidates or parties.3,4,7

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 sponsor8.

§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 data9,10: 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
Roanoke College Institute for Policy and Opinion Research162001–2021D+1.6D+0.95.6 pts2.6 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 6 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the fieldQuestionResultWithPaid for bySample
October 25–October 27, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 51 · Winsome Earle-Sears 411,041 LV
October 25–October 27, 2025Attorney general · 2025 VirginiaJason Miyares 46 · Jay Jones 381,041 LV
August 11–August 15, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 46 · Winsome Earle-Sears 39602 LV
August 11–August 15, 2025Attorney general · 2025 VirginiaJay Jones 41 · Jason Miyares 38602 LV
May 12–May 19, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 43 · Winsome Earle-Sears 26609 RV
February 17–February 20, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 39 · Winsome Earle-Sears 24690 RV

§6What we looked for and didn't find

  • No announcement explaining why its regular surveys ended in 2026 was found; the institute page says only that they ran from 1983 to 2026.
  • No standing news partner was found; the releases read name none.
  • Its methodology page and its May 2025 and October 2025 poll documents returned not found.
  • No start date was found for Siena's data collection role.
  • Cardinal News reported in 2024 that former Governor Terry McAuliffe disputed its regional sampling; that is campaign criticism, not a finding, and is listed as a pointer.
  • 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 the Roanoke College Poll or IPOR found none; the only dispute found is the 2024 campaign criticism already listed under pointers.