Pollster · Academic

University of Texas at Tyler Center for Opinion Research

Also published as University of Texas at Tyler.

Research draft
Polls since 2024
8
Latest poll ended
February 22, 2026
Record vs. results, relative
D+0.7

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 University of Texas at Tyler says its Center for Opinion Research opened in fall 2018 in its College of Arts and Sciences, founded by faculty members Kenneth Wink, Mark Owens and Kenneth Bryant Jr.2 Its polling center page says the center is hosted by the Department of Political Science and History and includes a survey center with 25 work stations where students take part in data collection.3 The Tyler Morning Telegraph described Ken Wink as a UT Tyler professor and interim center director in June 2025.4

Kind
Academic2,3
Founded
20182

§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

  • The University of Texas at Tyler. Its polling center page places the center in the university's Department of Political Science and History.3

News partners

  • The Dallas Morning News (2020–now). UT Tyler announced in February 2020 a collaboration with The Dallas Morning News under which the center would run five polls of registered Texas voters before the November 2020 election, and its polling center page lists past polls labeled as Dallas Morning News and UT Tyler polls.3,5

Fieldwork or panel by

  • Dynata. The February 2026 topline report says 771 of its respondents were randomly selected from the Dynata panel of online respondents.6
  • ProMark Research. The February 2026 topline report says its telephone interviews were conducted by the university with support from ProMark Research.6

Founded by

  • Kenneth Wink (2018). A 2019 UT Tyler article names Kenneth Wink as a co-founder of the center.2
  • Mark Owens (2018). A 2019 UT Tyler article names Mark Owens as a co-founder of the center.2
  • Kenneth Bryant Jr. (2018). A 2019 UT Tyler article names Kenneth Bryant Jr. as a co-founder of the center.2

Led by

  • Ken Wink. According to the Tyler Morning Telegraph, Ken Wink was the center's interim director in June 2025.4

§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. In a 2019 UT Tyler article, co-founder Kenneth Wink said the team is nonpartisan when it does research. This rests on the center's own description.2

Of its 8 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor7.

§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 data8,9: 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
University of Texas at Tyler Center for Opinion Research52018–2022D+1.4D+0.74.7 pts1.8 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 8 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the fieldQuestionResultWithPaid for bySample
February 13–February 22, 2026U.S. Senate · 2026 Texas DemocraticJasmine Crockett 56 · James Talarico 34 · Ahmad Hassan 71,117 RV
February 13–February 22, 2026Governor · 2026 TexasGreg Abbott 49 · Gina Hinojosa 411,117 RV
February 13–February 22, 2026Governor · 2026 TexasGreg Abbott 51 · Chris Bell 391,117 RV
February 13–February 22, 2026Governor · 2026 TexasGreg Abbott 49 · Gina Hinojosa 411,117 RV
February 13–February 22, 2026U.S. Senate · 2026 Texas DemocraticJasmine Crockett 55 · James Talarico 37 · Ahmad Hassan 4959 LV
September 17–September 24, 2025U.S. Senate · 2026 TexasKen Paxton 38 · James Talarico 371,032 RV
September 17–September 24, 2025U.S. Senate · 2026 Texas DemocraticColin Allred 42 · James Talarico 30377 RV
September 17–September 24, 2025U.S. Senate · 2026 TexasJohn Cornyn 41 · James Talarico 351,032 RV

§6What we looked for and didn't find

  • The February 2026 topline hosted on uttyler.edu returned not found, so its methodology is cited from the copy posted by The Gilmer Mirror.
  • No source read said whether the Dallas Morning News collaboration continues or when it ended.
  • No current director was confirmed on a UT Tyler page.
  • The center's pages do not name its funders.
  • No campaign or party clients were found.
  • Searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction.