Pollster · Academic

University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research

AAPOR Transparency Initiative since March 9, 2018¹Research draft

Polls since 2024: 3
Latest poll ended: October 28, 2026
Record vs. results, relative: D+1.1

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 Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) is a University of Southern California research center whose website describes it as studying how social services, public policy and population trends affect well-being, with offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.² USC's Schaeffer Institute announced on April 13, 2026 that CESR had joined the Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service, to be administered by the USC Price School of Public Policy, and said Arie Kapteyn founded CESR in 2013 and is its executive director.^3,4 CESR runs the Understanding America Study, which the study's data site describes as a nationally representative, probability-based internet panel of about 15,000 U.S. residents, including a California oversample.⁵ Its election poll page says CESR ran national election tracking polls on that panel in 2016 and 2020, and that USC initiated and financed the 2020 poll.⁶ A release from the USC Democracy and Fair Elections Lab for California House district polls published October 30, 2026 says the Lab conducted them and the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future funded them, and does not mention CESR.⁷

Kind: Academic^2,3
Founded: 2013³

§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 Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service (2026–now). USC's Schaeffer Institute announced in April 2026 that CESR had joined it, with the USC Price School administering the center, and the CESR website calls it a flagship program of the Schaeffer Institute.^3,4

News partners

Los Angeles Times (2016–2016). Its election poll page says the 2016 Daybreak tracking poll was run in partnership with the Los Angeles Times.⁶

Polls regularly for

University of Southern California Center for the Political Future (2016–2016). Its election poll page names USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, which it says is now the Center for the Political Future, as a partner in the 2016 Daybreak poll.⁶

Founded by

Arie Kapteyn (2013). The Schaeffer Institute announcement says Arie Kapteyn, a USC Dornsife economics professor, founded CESR in 2013.³

Led by

Arie Kapteyn. The Schaeffer Institute announcement names Arie Kapteyn as CESR's executive director.³

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 Democracy and Fair Elections Lab · 3 polls listed

Who paid for its polls

Sponsors named on its polls, most polls first⁸. A party-aligned flag is VoteHub's, per poll.
Sponsor	Polls	Between	Flagged party-aligned
University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	3	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.

Doesn’t say whom it works for. The CESR pages read do not say whether it works for candidates or parties; its election poll page says USC initiated and financed its 2020 poll.^2,6

Of its 3 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 data^9,10: 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 as	Polls	Elections	Average miss	Relative to other polls	Typical size of miss	538's last rating
University of Southern California Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research	8	2016–2020	D+2.3	D+1.1	5.4 pts	2.4 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.

§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.

2 polls of 2 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+10.1
Relative to other polls of the same races: Even
Typical size of miss: 13.2 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

The 3 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	With	Paid for by	Sample
October 22–October 28, 2026	U.S. House · 2026 CA-01	Mike McGuire 54 · James Gallagher 40	University of Southern California Democracy and Fair Elections Lab	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 Democracy and Fair Elections Lab	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 Democracy and Fair Elections Lab	University of Southern California Center for the Political Future	356 LV

§7What we looked for and didn't find

Our poll listings carry a joint byline of the USC Democracy and Fair Elections Lab and CESR for the October 2026 California House polls, but the Lab's release for those polls does not mention CESR, so CESR's role in them was not found.
No standing news partner since the 2016 Los Angeles Times arrangement was found, and no outside fieldwork or panel vendor is named, since its election polls used its own Understanding America Study panel.
Its election poll page describes a post-election review of the 2016 Daybreak poll that found too many rural respondents and reweighted the estimate; this was its own methodology review rather than a withdrawal of polls or a correction of a release, so it is not recorded as a finding.
Searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction by CESR.