SurveyUSA is a polling firm in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. It conducts

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers. It involves understanding who they are and what they need. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining com ...

for

corporations A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

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 50

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

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 their

touch tone Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signaling is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed ...

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

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 for California 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). SurveyUSA is owned by Hypotenuse, Inc., a privately held company in New Jersey. As of March 2023, the polling analysis website ''

FiveThirtyEight ''FiveThirtyEight'', also rendered as ''538'', was an American website that focused on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which took its name from the number of electors in the U ...

'', led by statistician

Nate Silver Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who Sabermetrics, analyzes baseball, basketball and Psephology, elections. He is the founder of ''FiveThirty ...

, had 856 SurveyUSA polls in its database, and gave SurveyUSA an "A+" grade on the basis of its historical accuracy and

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...

. ''FiveThirtyEight'' listed SurveyUSA as having a 89% accuracy rate in calling elections.

FiveThirtyEight's Pollster Ratings
''FiveThirtyEight'' (last accessed April 27, 2023).

Methodology

SurveyUSA has historically relied on

random sampling In this statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset or a statistical sample (termed sample for short) of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the who ...

methods for its polling, but switched to include

nonprobability sampling Nonprobability sampling is a form of Sampling (statistics), sampling that does not utilise random sampling techniques where the probability of getting any particular sample may be calculated. Nonprobability samples are not intended to be used to ...

methods as well in the 2010s. 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 company Aristotle, 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 prevent order and recency bias. SurveyUSA states that it conducts minimal weighting on poll results. Its polls weight demographic variables using either voter files and

US Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

figures, depending on the type of sample that was surveyed. Common characteristics that are weighted include gender, age, and race.

References

{{Reflist

External links

SurveyUSA web site
The Hotline,

National Journal ''National Journal'' is an advisory services company based in Washington, D.C., offering services in government affairs, advocacy communications, stakeholder mapping, and policy brands research for government and business leaders. It publishes ...

's Daily Briefing on Politics
Article
from

Public Opinion Quarterly ''Public Opinion Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press for the American Association for Public Opinion Research, covering communication studies, political science, current public opinion, and survey ...

by Mark Blumenthal, author of th
Mystery Pollster blog
in which Blumenthal discusses advantages and disadvantages of the automated survey technology used in SurveyUSA's polls. Public opinion research companies in the United States