Pollster · Academic

University of Southern California Democracy and Fair Elections Lab

Research draft

Polls since 2024: 7
Latest poll ended: November 1, 2026

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 USC Democracy and Fair Elections Lab describes itself as a nonpartisan quantitative research lab on redistricting, election administration, voting rights and representation, housed in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.¹ Its website names Christian R. Grose, a USC professor of political science and public policy, as director, and his faculty profile lists that role from August 15, 2025 and says the Lab trains students in quantitative election analysis.^1,2 USC Dornsife says the Lab conducted the Center for the Political Future's California Battleground Poll of four congressional districts, fielded October 22-28, 2026 by email and text with voters drawn from the state voter file, and the Center's results page lists the Center as sponsor.^3,4

Kind: Academic¹

§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

USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Its website says the Lab is housed in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.¹

Led by

Christian R. Grose (2025–now). Its website and Christian Grose's faculty profile name him as director, a role the profile dates from August 15, 2025.^1,2

Published with

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

University of Southern California Democracy and Fair Elections Lab/University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research: University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research · 3 polls listed

Who paid for its polls

Sponsors named on its polls, most polls first⁵. A party-aligned flag is VoteHub's, per poll.
Sponsor	Polls	Between	Flagged party-aligned
University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	4	October 28, 2026	No

§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 website describes its research as nonpartisan, and the Center for the Political Future's results page says the October 2026 poll had no political, corporate or external sponsorship; this rests on those descriptions.^1,4

Of its 7 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁵.

§42026 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+10.2
Relative to other polls of the same races: Even
Typical size of miss: 12.3 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.

§5Its polls

The 7 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	With	Paid for by	Sample
October 28–November 1, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-07	Doris Matsui 49 · Mai Vang 39			442 LV
October 22–October 28, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-01	Mike McGuire 54 · James Gallagher 40	University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research	University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	439 LV
October 22–October 28, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-06	Richard Pan 55 · Kevin Kiley 43	University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research	University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	439 LV
October 22–October 28, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-22	Randy Villegas 54 · David Valadao 44	University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research	University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	356 LV
October 22–October 28, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-48	Marni von Wilpert 52 · Jim Desmond 44		University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	474 LV
October 16–October 24, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-34	Angela Gonzales-Torres 51 · Jimmy Gomez 45			423 LV
October 16–October 19, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-11	Scott Wiener 51 · Connie Chan 44			454 LV

§6What we looked for and didn't find

No founding year was found; Grose's profile dates his directorship from August 2025.
The USC Center for the Political Future is listed as the sponsor of one release (four district polls fielded October 22-28, 2026); a single release is not recorded as a standing relationship.
Our data show a joint byline with the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, but no page read describes that center's role in the Lab's polls, so no relationship is recorded.
The Lab's own poll pages load by JavaScript and could not be read beyond their summary text, so its CA-07, CA-11 and CA-34 polls in our data were not traced to a sponsor or fieldwork vendor.
Grose's profile also lists him as director of the California Elections and Policy Poll since 2024, which Cal State Long Beach runs in partnership with USC and Cal Poly Pomona; the pages read for that poll do not name the Lab, so no co-pollster relationship is recorded.
No news outlet partner was found.
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 Lab or its polls found none; a March 2026 USC statement defending governor-debate criteria designed by its director concerns debate selection rather than the Lab's polls and is listed under pointers.