Survey 160

§1About

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

Survey 160, Inc. describes itself as an American company that builds text message survey tools, running surveys conducted entirely by text with live interviewers as well as text-to-web surveys that send respondents a link.^2,3,4 Its background page says it launched in 2018, was cofounded by Nathaniel Lubin, its chief executive, and Kevin Collins, its chief research officer, and had early support from Harmony Labs, New Media Ventures and Higher Ground Labs.⁴ Its April 2026 tracking poll and its November 2026 four-state pre-election surveys each say they were paid for by Survey 160 as part of its methodological research.^5,6

Kind

Commercial firm^2,4

Founded

2018⁴

§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.

§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 background page says it has no partisan commitment or ideological requirement for using its platform, and also that it works only with candidates or groups that meet its standards, which it says can include political campaigns and committees; it names no party or candidate clients.⁴

Of its 13 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁷.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 4 federal committees reported paying Survey 160 $1,274,908 for polling, surveys or research^8,9,10,11. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 2 Democratic, 0 Republican, and 2 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

§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.

Party margin

D+2.4 (±1.2) across 9 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 7 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.

3 polls of 3 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+1.5

Relative to other polls of the same races

D+0.9

Typical size of miss

1.5 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

§7What we looked for and didn't find

• No headquarters location was found on its website.
• No ownership breakdown was found; the background page names early supporters but does not say whether they hold equity.
• No standing news partner or named non-news client was found; its homepage shows logos of researchers it has fielded surveys for, but the logos are not named in text.
• No co-pollster was found, and the panel vendor is named only in the April 2026 tracking poll release read.
• Searches for AAPOR statements, court cases, regulator actions (including telephone consumer protection cases), aggregator exclusion statements and retractions found nothing naming the firm.