Glen Mills, PA – August 21, 2026 – The best opinion research starts with a simple idea: if you want to know what Americans think, you have to actually ask them and report what they tell you. That principle has guided SSRS for more than three decades.
“Our job is to make sure that when we say we’re representing the American public, we actually are,” said Melissa Herrmann, President of SSRS. “That means real people, selected the right way, asked real questions, with nothing hidden about how we collected the information.”
At SSRS, our work rests on core commitments: Careful attention to finding and recruiting respondents through scientific and tested approaches, rigorous quality checks throughout data collection, and transparent methodologies published along with the data. Our business is built on these commitments, including being a charter member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research Transparency Initiative, which lays out the principles for responsible opinion research (https://aapor.org/standards-and-ethics/transparency-initiative/).
These principles matter now more than ever. News reports have recently highlighted bad actors in the research space – fabricated polls released without basic disclosure, campaign polls changing respondent answers to match their preferred outcome, even indictments for selling manufactured survey data. These episodes are a reminder of what’s possible when the standards of the profession are treated as optional. At SSRS, they are not.
“Behind every data point is a real person,” Herrmann said. “That’s the whole premise of what we do.”
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About SSRS
SSRS is a full-service survey and market research firm specializing in public opinion, health, political, and social science research. For more than three decades, SSRS has partnered with leading academic institutions, media organizations, non-profits, and government agencies to deliver rigorous, methodologically sound research. Learn more at ssrs.com.
Press Contact Karin Bandoian: kbandoian@ssrs.com or 484-840-4317