Patriot Polling — a nonpartisan firm gauging voter sentiment — aims to fill two statistical voids identified by its two founders: faulty analyses and unfocused demographics, writes Wakisha Bailey for CBS Philadelphia.

The firm’s leaders, Lucca Ruggieri and Arhan Kaul, are attuned to emerging voting blocs, especially Gen Z. Their voter insight comes from being members of that demographic themselves.

17-year-old Ruggieri goes to Great Valley High School in Malvern. Meanwhile, Kaul attends Spring Ford High School in neighboring Montgomery County.

Driving the Patriot Polling statistical work is cited evidence that the major players often get voter sentiment wrong.

“Big miss in 2016; big miss in 2020. And we thought if these professional pollsters are getting it wrong, we might get it right,” said Ruggieri.

The company uses a third-party cold-calling system to survey voters nationwide.

One of its highest-profile 2022 successes was the New York gubernatorial race. Patriot Polling was one of the only organizations accurately citing how close it was for Democratic winner Kathy Hochul. She emerged victorious with just a five percent lead, a margin Patriot Polling was most exact in forecasting.

Their work has been lauded by statistical analysis publication FiveThirtyEight and The New York Times.

A full account of the work of Patriot Polling is at CBS Philadelphia.