# Edison Research **Edison Research** is the survey firm that ran the American network exit poll for the [[National Election Pool]] (NEP) for more than two decades, and that also supplied the NEP networks with a rapid vote count. Larry Rosin and Joe Lenski founded it in **1994**. (Some trade press says "founded 2003," which is the year it became the NEP's exit pollster, not the year it was founded.) In 2025 Edison lost both of its election jobs in the same month: - **The survey** passed to [[SSRS]], which bought Edison. - **The count** passed to the [[Associated Press]], when the networks switched vote-count suppliers. ## The exit poll, 2003–2024 Edison was the NEP's only Election Day polling provider for 22 years, starting in 2003 after the Voter News Service collapsed. It was the firm behind the numbers that networks used to characterize who voted and why, and an input to their race calls. Its most famous miss was **2004**. Early exit-poll numbers leaned toward [[John Kerry]], fueling a lasting conspiracy theory that the [[2004 Presidential Election]] had been stolen in Ohio. Edison and Mitofsky's own January 2005 evaluation traced the error to answers *within* the sampled precincts, not to which precincts were picked. Its explanation was that Kerry voters were more willing to talk to interviewers. That episode is the template for the recurring argument that an exit poll "proves" a count was rigged (see [[Exit Poll]] and [[Election Conspiracy Theories]]). ## The 2025 reshuffle - **The sale.** On October 15, 2025, SSRS announced it had acquired Edison; terms were not disclosed. Rosin and Lenski joined SSRS's leadership, and Edison now describes itself as "part of SSRS." - **The count.** Also in October 2025, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC agreed to take vote counts from the AP for 2026 and 2028, ending Edison's role in election-night tabulation. [[Fox News]] had used AP since 2017. - **The survey.** The exit poll became **The Voter Poll by SSRS**. This is not a simple rename: the new program merges the old exit poll with [[AP VoteCast]] and the Fox News Voter Analysis, and it was first used in November 2025. The net effect for the 2026 midterms: the networks' **count** comes from one source (AP), and their **survey** comes from one merged source (SSRS). See [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]]. ## Beyond elections Edison's other long-running product is audio research. *The Infinite Dial*, its annual survey of radio, streaming and podcast listening, has run since 1998. The 2026 edition, presented on March 12, 2026 with SiriusXM Media as partner, was billed as coming from "Edison Research, now a part of SSRS." ## See Also - [[National Election Pool]] · [[SSRS]] · [[Exit Poll]] · [[AP VoteCast]] - [[Associated Press]] · [[Fox News]] · [[Decision Desk HQ]] - [[How Election Results Are Transmitted and Reported]] - [[2004 Presidential Election]] · [[Election Conspiracy Theories]]