Pollster · Commercial firm

Victory Research

Research draft

Polls since 2024: 4
Latest poll ended: March 15, 2026
Record vs. results, relative: R+1.8

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.

Victory Research describes itself in its releases as an independent polling company based in Chicago that has conducted The Illinois Poll, a semi-monthly survey, since 2001.¹ Its website, the Illinois Politics Blog at politicsillinois.com, names Rod McCulloch as its pollster and lists past clients under Democratic candidates, Republican candidates, and business, labor, nonprofit and independent clients.^2,3,4,5 Its January 2026 release says that poll used live callers reaching 806 voters by landline and cell phone, and that the firm had no polling client in the US Senate race.¹

Kind: Commercial firm^2,3

§2Whom 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 candidates or groups in both parties. Its client pages list Democratic candidates and a Democratic township party alongside Republican candidates and two Republican county parties, so this rests on the clients it names; the pages give no years for any client.^4,5

Toni Preckwinkle. The firm's Democratic client page lists Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, without a year.⁴
Jesus Garcia. The firm's Democratic client page lists Congressman Jesus Garcia, without a year.⁴
Leyden Township Democratic Party. The firm's Democratic client page lists the Leyden Township Democratic Party, without a year.⁴
Peter Roskam. The firm's Republican client page lists Congressman Peter Roskam, without a year.⁵
Dennis Hastert. The firm's Republican client page lists former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, without a year.⁵
DuPage County Republican Party. The firm's Republican client page lists the DuPage County Republican Party, without a year.⁵
Kane County Republican Party. The firm's Republican client page lists the Kane County Republican Party, without a year.⁵

Of its 4 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor⁶.

Federal campaigns and committees that paid it

From 2023 through 2026, 1 federal committee reported paying Victory Research $22,500 for polling, surveys or research^7,8,9,10. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 0 Democratic, 1 Republican, and 0 none (most PACs and super PACs report none).

The largest payers, by amount paid for polling, surveys or research. Only federal committees report to the FEC; state and local campaigns, work paid through another consultant, and polling billed as consulting are not here. Matched by the payee name on the filing: VICTORY RESEARCH.
Committee	Kind	Party it reports	Paid for polling	Between
JOHN RUST FOR US SENATE	Senate campaign	Republican	$22,500	April 26, 2024 – May 13, 2024

§3Record 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^11,12: 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
Victory Research	11	2004–2022	D+0.5	R+1.8	6.1 pts	1.8 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.

§4Its polls

The 4 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the field	Question	Result	Sample
March 13–March 15, 2026	U.S. Senate · 2026 Illinois Democratic	Raja Krishnamoorthi 31.6 · Juliana Stratton 29.4 · Robin Kelly 13.6	806 LV
January 21–January 25, 2026	U.S. Senate · 2026 Illinois Democratic	Raja Krishnamoorthi 32.1 · Juliana Stratton 20.7 · Robin Kelly 11.4 · Awisi Bustos 2.4 · Christopher Swann 1 · Jonathan Dean 0.6 · 4 more	806 LV
November 20–November 24, 2025	U.S. Senate · 2026 Illinois Democratic	Raja Krishnamoorthi 29.1 · Robin Kelly 22.3 · Juliana Stratton 17.7 · Awisi Bustos 2.2 · Kevin Ryan 0.4 · Sean Brown 0.4 · 1 more	— LV
November 20–November 24, 2025	Governor · 2026 Illinois	JB Pritzker 54 · Darren Bailey 34	1,208 LV

§5What we looked for and didn't find

No founding year for the firm was found (The Illinois Poll is dated to 2001), and its pages do not state who owns or leads it beyond naming Rod McCulloch as its pollster.
No standing news partner was found; the Fox 32 and ABC7 reports of its polls name no sponsor.
No fieldwork or panel vendor is named; its releases say it uses live callers.
Searches and AAPOR's statements page found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing about the firm or its polls, regulator action, aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls, or retraction; a past case about its pollster personally is listed under pointers, not as a finding.