A group of leading independent polling firms has announced the formation of a new organization aimed at providing accurate and unbiased political polling data, following years of growing public distrust in election polling.
The new group, called the National Association of Independent Pollsters (NAIP), includes Rasmussen Reports, Big Data Poll, InsiderAdvantage, and Trafalgar Group—four firms that consistently ranked among the most accurate in the 2024 election cycle.
The association was formally announced this week and is intended to serve as a counterbalance to what organizers describe as a consistent polling bias from legacy media outlets and academic institutions.
BREAKING: Four of the nation’s most accurate public opinion research firms @BIGDATAPOLL, @InsiderPolling, @Rasmussen_Poll, & @trafalgar_group have announced the formation of The National Association of Independent Pollsters.
Members will be chosen based solely on consistent… pic.twitter.com/XoyszoKb3w
— Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) July 8, 2025
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Polling accuracy in the United States has been under increased scrutiny in recent election cycles.
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Major polling aggregators and establishment pollsters have repeatedly failed to predict key races and national outcomes, most notably in 2016, 2020, and 2024.
In the 2016 presidential election, nearly every major poll projected a victory for Hillary Clinton, with the RealClearPolitics average showing her ahead of Donald Trump by 3.2 points nationally.
She ultimately won the popular vote by 2.1 points, but lost the Electoral College to Trump—a result only Rasmussen Reports came close to forecasting.
Rasmussen was also the only major pollster to suggest that Trump had a plausible path to victory.
Polling accuracy declined further in 2020, when national surveys showed Joe Biden with a lead of 7.2 points over Trump.
The official margin ended up being 4.5 points, nearly a three-point error, not accounting for widespread allegations of irregularities in certain states.
That year, state-level polling also suffered major setbacks. Quinnipiac University, for example, predicted that Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) would lose by 12 points.
Collins won reelection by 8.8 points—a miss of 20.8 percentage points.
Other notable misfires included Mitch McConnell, who was projected to win by 9 points but secured a margin of over 20 points, and Joni Ernst, who polled just 1.4 points ahead of her opponent but ended up winning by 6.6 points.
Polling failures continued into the 2024 election, where nearly every major poll on Election Day projected a victory for Kamala Harris, with the notable exception of Rasmussen.
These projections proved incorrect as President Donald Trump secured reelection.
The inaccuracy was particularly glaring in Iowa, where the widely respected Selzer Poll incorrectly forecast a Harris victory.
In response to these repeated failures, the four independent polling firms are joining forces under the NAIP banner with the stated goal of restoring credibility and consistency to the industry.
The group’s stated mission is to “provide the very best of the polling industry the opportunity to share ideas and explore the rapidly evolving changes in the industry.”
The NAIP will not impose formal standards on its members, according to the organization.
Richard Baris, head of Big Data Poll, will serve as the association’s first chairman. “We don’t need to set any standards given that anyone who is a member or future member of this organization has already established that they are among the most accurate pollsters in America,” Baris said in a press release.
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“WITHOUT THAT TRUST, THE INDUSTRY IS WORTHLESS, IT’S POINTLESS, IT’S ACTUALLY HARMFUL.” – @Peoples_Pundit weighs in as top pollsters create a new association with @AmandaHead and @jsolomonReports. pic.twitter.com/arDRWAhW1K
— Real America’s Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 10, 2025
All four firms in the association ranked among the top 10 most accurate pollsters in 2024, according to post-election reviews.
The creation of the NAIP comes amid widespread efforts to rebuild public trust in polling, especially among conservative voters who have expressed skepticism toward major media-backed surveys.
The association’s members say they will continue to conduct polling independently, with the shared goal of offering transparent, data-driven insights that reflect reality more accurately than legacy polling institutions.
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