YouGov

§1About

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

YouGov is an international research data and analytics group whose website says it draws on a panel of millions of registered members across 64 markets.¹ Its corporate timeline says Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim Zahawi co-founded it in Britain in 2000, and its 2025 annual results give a registered office in London and say its shares are listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.^2,3 Those results name Shakespeare, who returned to the post in 2025, as chief executive.³

Kind

Commercial firm^1,3

Founded

2000²

§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.

Published with

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

• University of Massachusetts Department of Political Science/YouGov: University of Massachusetts Department of Political Science · 27 polls listed
• Bowling Green State University/YouGov: Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research · 13 polls listed
• University of Massachusetts Lowell Center for Public Opinion/YouGov: University of Massachusetts Lowell Center for Public Opinion · 13 polls listed
• Michigan State University Institute for Public Policy and Social Research/YouGov: Michigan State University Institute for Public Policy and Social Research · 6 polls listed
• Elon University/YouGov: Elon University Poll · 5 polls listed
• The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin/YouGov: Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin · 5 polls listed
• UMass Amherst/YouGov: University of Massachusetts Department of Political Science · 5 polls listed
• University of Houston/YouGov: University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs · 3 polls listed
• High Point University Survey Research Center/YouGov: High Point University Survey Research Center · 2 polls listed
• Pennsylvania State University McCourtney Institute for Democracy/YouGov: Pennsylvania State University McCourtney Institute for Democracy · 2 polls listed
• Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas/YouGov: Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin · 2 polls listed
• University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs/YouGov: University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs · 2 polls listed
• Wesleyan University Survey Lab/YouGov: Wesleyan University Survey Lab · 1 poll listed
• YouGov - CBS News: CBS News · 1 poll listed
• Tufts University Public Opinion Lab/YouGov: Tufts University Public Opinion Lab
• University of Colorado American Politics Research Lab/YouGov: University of Colorado American Politics Research Lab

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. The YouGov business site describes YouGov Blue as a unit serving Democratic and progressive clients in the US, among them candidates, unions, interest groups and think tanks. That page does not mention Republican clients, and the main YouGov about page does not say whether the company works for candidates or parties.^1,7

Of its 805 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, 5 federal committees reported paying YouGov $66,999 for polling, surveys or research^8,9,10,11. By the party each committee reports to the FEC: 3 Democratic, 0 Republican, 1 another party, and 1 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 once⁶. 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

D+0.4 (±0.4) across 159 polls of the generic ballot and 2026 races, in 19 contests.

Net approval: Donald Trump

−2.9 points (±0.5) across 210 polls, against other polls of the same question.

Net favorability: Donald Trump

−3.3 points (±0.7) across 108 polls, against other polls of the same question.

Net favorability: JD Vance

−2.7 points (±0.8) across 94 polls, against other polls of the same question.

Net approval: Congress

−6.4 points (±2.3) across 77 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.

§5Record 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^12,13: 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.

ABC News closed FiveThirtyEight in March 2025; its data stops at the 2022 elections. 2026 results will be added once states certify them.

§62026 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.

6 polls of 5 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+4.7

Relative to other polls of the same races

D+0.9

Typical size of miss

6.3 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 6 polls in all.

§7Documented findings

Why this matters: Only findings by a professional body, a court, a regulator, an aggregator's own published decision, or the pollster itself are listed, each cited to that decision.

• YouGov, March 26, 2026. YouGov published the conclusions of its own investigation into a 2024 survey it ran for Bible Society, saying some respondents in the groups the survey emphasized were likely fraudulent, that some anti-fraud measures had not been applied as well as they could have been, and that the problem was enough to move the key result by a few points. It said it took full responsibility for the original research, apologized, and planned a new study with Bible Society.¹⁴

§8Its polls

§9What we looked for and didn't find

• No start date was found for the Economist/YouGov or CBS News/YouGov arrangements.
• No breakdown of YouGov plc shareholders was retrieved.
• The recorded retraction concerns a British survey for a client, not a US election poll, and the YouGov statement does not say in so many words that the 2024 data were withdrawn.
• Beyond the finding recorded, searches found no AAPOR statement, court ruling or filing, regulator action, or aggregator statement about excluding or reweighting its polls; regulators outside the US were not searched in depth.
• The Silver Bulletin ratings table and the VoteHub methodology pages could not be read, so aggregator checks rest on published text from aggregators and news searches.