Tavern Research

§1About

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

Tavern Research describes itself as a research and media firm that combines polling, message testing, ad production and ad placement, and its homepage says Tavern was created so Democrats win more.¹ A Tavern job posting describes it as a venture-backed political tech startup and says employees work from its Chicago office.² Its about page lists Matt Lackey as founder and chief executive and says he previously worked on Pete Buttigieg's 2020 and Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaigns.³ Its May 2026 Montana toplines describe an online sample of likely voters fielded over web panels.⁴

Kind

Works for one party¹

§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.

Works for Democratic candidates or groups. Its homepage says Tavern was created so Democrats win more.¹

Of its 38 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 3 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁵.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 10 federal committees reported paying Tavern Research $1,541,421 for polling, surveys or research^6,7,8,9. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 1 Democratic, 0 Republican, and 9 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 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

R+4.1 (±3.1) across 7 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 2 contests.

Without a party-aligned sponsor

R+5.1 (±2.9) across 6 polls

Net approval: Donald Trump

+0.5 points (±2.2) across 7 polls, against other polls of the same question.

Net favorability: Donald Trump

+2.2 points (±0.9) across 7 polls, against other polls of the same question.

Net favorability: JD Vance

+0.9 points (±1.7) across 5 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.

§5Its polls

§6What we looked for and didn't find

• No founding year was found on its own pages, and no ownership or investor names were found beyond its description of itself as venture-backed.
• Its toplines describe web panels but do not name a panel vendor.
• No standing news partner was found.
• Contours Inc., the Searchlight Institute, the AI Policy Institute and other sponsors in our data were not traced to standing relationships, and its website names no clients.
• Searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction by the firm.