SurveyUSA is apolling firm in theUnited States. It conductsmarket research forcorporations and interest groups, but is best known for conducting opinion polls for various political offices and questions. SurveyUSA conducts these opinion polls under contract by over 50television stations (who also use the SurveyUSA market research to fine-tune their newscasts for higher ratings).The difference between SurveyUSA and other telephone polling firms is twofold. First, SurveyUSA does not use live call center employees, but an automated system. Taped questions are asked of the respondent by a professional announcer (usually a local news anchor), and the respondent is invited to press a button on theirtouch tonetelephone or record a message at a prompt designating their selection. Secondly, SurveyUSA uses more concise language, especially for ballot propositions, than competitors. This can lead to diverging results, such as forCalifornia Proposition 76, where one version of the SurveyUSA question with a one sentence description, polled significantly differently compared to another version with a three sentence description (which was similar to a version of the question used by other pollsters, which used a five or six sentence question).[1]
SurveyUSA is owned by Hypotenuse, Inc., a privately held company in New Jersey.
As of March 2023, the polling analysis websiteFiveThirtyEight, led by statisticianNate Silver, had 856 SurveyUSA polls in its database, and gave SurveyUSA an "A+" grade on the basis of its historical accuracy andmethodology.FiveThirtyEight listed SurveyUSA as having a 89% accuracy rate in calling elections.[2]
SurveyUSA has historically relied onrandom sampling methods for its polling, but switched to includenonprobability sampling methods as well in the 2010s.[3][4] SurveyUSA varies polling contact methods on a project-by-project basis, using both telephone and online surveys of respondents, including blends of methods for single polls. Telephone polls vary in usage of live and automated interviewers and implement quasirandom methods to select a respondent from a household. SurveyUSA obtains telephone sample data from data mining companyAristotle, Inc. and non-telephone samples from both Aristotle and marketing research company Federated Sample. It conducts phone surveys on both landlines and cell phones. Poll questions and answer options are sometimes presented in rotated orders to preventorder and recency bias.[5]
SurveyUSA states that it conducts minimal weighting on poll results. Its polls weight demographic variables using either voter files andUS Census Bureau figures, depending on the type of sample that was surveyed. Common characteristics that are weighted include gender, age, and race.[5][4]