Polarization Research Lab

What Polarization Research Lab does

Polarization Research Lab is a non-profit, multi-institutional academic research organization hosted at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, with a co-director affiliation at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. Founded in 2022 (though elite legislator data collection extends back to 2014), the lab studies political polarization and democratic health through weekly citizen surveys, NLP-classified legislator communications, and a six-country comparative democracy panel.

The lab's product surface, branded "America's Political Pulse," consists of seven interconnected public dashboards: the 2026 US Elections Dashboard (tracking 2,870 candidates across 471 races), the American Views on Democracy Dashboard (153 weekly waves and 165K responses), the American Political Violence Database (1970–present, updated daily), the Legislator Quality Dashboard (8.2M statements from 535 Members of Congress and 7.6K state officials), the Global Democracy Dashboard (225K responses across six countries), the American Values Dashboard, and an Open Data Portal releasing all datasets under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Underlying technology is a proprietary natural language processing pipeline classifying rhetoric into nine categories in real time, combined with multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) for state-level estimates and the Model Slant Project evaluating political bias across 24 large language models. Leadership is anchored by Sean J. Westwood (Director, Dartmouth) and Yphtach Lelkes (Co-Director, UPenn).

The lab operates a foundation-grant revenue model with no commercial products, no pricing tiers, and no licensing revenue. The GTM motion is community-led: research is distributed through open data access, peer-reviewed publications (including a 2026 PNAS Cozzarelli Prize), and earned media placements in 241 articles across the New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, Scientific American, and The Atlantic. Customer segments are academic researchers, policymakers, journalists, and the engaged public — none of whom pay for access. Funding comes from eight major foundations spanning Carnegie Corporation of New York, Hewlett, Knight, Charles Koch, New Pluralists, Templeton World Charity Foundation, Neukom Institute, and the Institute for Humane Studies.

Name

Polarization Research Lab

Legal name

Polarization Research Lab

Website

https://polarizationresearchlab.org

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Polarization Research Lab is a non-profit academic research initiative hosted at Dartmouth College that studies American political polarization through weekly citizen surveys, NLP-classified legislator communications, and cross-national democracy data. It distributes all datasets publicly under Creative Commons and serves researchers, policymakers, journalists, and the public.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Political Research and Open Data Analytics

NAICS

Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (541720), Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling (54191)

akta.pro primary industry

Education Policy Research Institutes & Think Tanks (EDADADAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Think Tanks, Policy Research & Public Policy Institutes (BPAGAFAO), Survey, Panel & Fieldwork Services (BPAHALAJ), Education Equity, Access & Inclusion Policy Research (EDADADAF)

Keywords

• Political polarization research
• Open data analytics
• Democratic attitudes tracking
• Legislator communication analysis
• Political violence monitoring

Headquarters

HQ city

Hanover

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Foundation Grants and Support: PRL operates as an academic research lab funded entirely by foundation grants and charitable support. Their funding comes from major foundations including Carnegie Corporation of New York, Hewlett Foundation, Knight Foundation, Charles Koch Foundation, New Pluralists, Templeton World Charity Foundation, Neukom Institute, and Institute for Humane Studies. All data and research outputs are provided free to the public under Creative Commons licensing.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Polarization Research Lab is a non-profit academic research organization that publishes open-access data dashboards and research on political polarization, democratic attitudes, legislator communication, and political violence in the United States and globally. Its core offering is the "America's Political Pulse" platform — a suite of interconnected dashboards (2026 Elections, American Views on Democracy, American Political Violence, Legislator Quality, Global Democracy, American Values) powered by an AI-based NLP pipeline that classifies political rhetoric in real time and by weekly survey tracking with state-level MRP estimates. All datasets and research outputs are released free to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Product overview

Polarization Research Lab operates a multi-module research platform called 'America's Political Pulse' focused on tracking democratic health and political polarization. The core offering consists of interconnected dashboards: the 2026 US Elections Dashboard (tracking candidate rhetoric), American Views on Democracy Dashboard (weekly citizen surveys), American Political Violence Database (historical incident tracking), Legislator Quality Dashboard (Congressional communication analysis), Global Democracy Dashboard (cross-national surveys), and American Values Dashboard (political attitudes). Supporting tools include the Open Data Portal (providing public datasets), Model Slant Project (AI bias analysis), and Democracy Fellows Program. All dashboards are powered by natural language processing for real-time statement classification and multilevel regression with poststratification (MRP) for state-level estimates.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• 2026 US Elections Dashboard Comprehensive tracker of 2,870 candidates running in 471 2026 races for U.S. Congress. Monitors rhetoric, campaign finance, and social media activity, and uses natural language processing to classify candidate statements from X/Twitter, campaign websites, and press releases.
• American Views on Democracy Dashboard Weekly survey data tracking 153 waves with 165K responses on how Democrats and Republicans view each other, support for democratic norms, and openness to political violence.
• American Political Violence Database Comprehensive database of political violence incidents in the United States from 1970 to present, updated daily.
• Legislator Quality Dashboard Tracks what every member of Congress and state legislator says publicly — speeches, press releases, and social media — classified by AI in real-time into categories including Policy Discussion, Policy Criticism, Personal Attacks, Accomplishments, and Bipartisanship. Covers 8.2M statements from 535 Members of Congress and 7.6K state officials since 2014.
• Global Democracy Dashboard Quarterly surveys tracking democratic attitudes across 6 countries (United States, India, Israel, Brazil, Poland, Germany) with 225K survey responses across 9 rounds. Measures affective polarization, support for political violence, and support for democratic norm violations.
• American Values Dashboard Monitors attitudes toward key values of the American political system including politics in the workplace, immigration, economy, tariffs, and free speech. Uses survey data from 165K responses since September 2022.
• Open Data Portal Publicly available datasets including complete U.S. survey responses (164K rows), state-level MRP estimates, survey codebooks, and survey toplines. All data provided under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
• Model Slant Project Analyzes political slant of large language models by presenting anonymized LLM responses to Americans who assess partisan leanings on 30 political topics. Covers 24 LLMs with 180,126 evaluations from 10,007 Americans.
• Democracy Fellows Program Annual program bringing undergraduate students to Washington, D.C. for an immersive experience exploring work required to sustain healthy democracy. Engages with leaders across partisanship in government, foundations, think tanks, and media.

Quantifiable outcome

• 241 media articles in major outlets from 2014-2026 demonstrating research impact and policy relevance
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Dartmouth CollegecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrimary institutional host for PRL. Lab Director Sean Westwood is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth. Provides institutional infrastructure, facilities, and academic framework.
• University of PennsylvaniacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-Director Yphtach Lelkes is Associate Professor at UPenn's Annenberg School for Communication, providing academic collaboration and research partnership.
• Hoover InstitutionminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHosted PRL's First Annual Meeting in collaboration with Stanford's Hoover Institution, convening top scholars on partisan animosity.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Pew Research Center: Pew Research Center is the most direct peer: a nonpartisan, publicly funded research organization producing large-scale public opinion polling and longitudinal studies on political polarization, democratic attitudes, and media. Both PRL and Pew publish open data, weekly or regular surveys, and reports that are widely cited by media and policymakers, competing for similar academic and journalistic mindshare.
• Gallup: Gallup is a direct peer in public opinion polling and longitudinal tracking of American attitudes, including democratic norms and institutional confidence. PRL competes for the same media citations, policymaker attention, and academic usage that Gallup has historically dominated, while differentiating on polarization-specific and AI-related measurement.
• YouGov: YouGov is a direct peer in online panel-based public opinion polling, including US and international surveys on political attitudes and election-related behavior. YouGov's panel methodology and frequent wave cadence are comparable to PRL's weekly tracking and state-level MRP estimates.
• Bright Line Watch: Bright Line Watch is a direct peer: an academic collaboration of political scientists that surveys citizens and experts on democratic norms, support for violence, and partisan animosity. PRL and Bright Line Watch publish overlapping topic matter and methodology (survey-based democratic health tracking), and compete for similar grant support and academic citations.
• V-Dem Institute: V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) at the University of Gothenburg is a direct peer producing cross-national expert-coded and survey-based measures of democratic health. PRL's Global Democracy Dashboard across 6 countries uses similar comparative methodology and targets overlapping funders (e.g., foundations supporting democratic resilience research).

Broad incumbents

• Brookings Institution: Brookings is a broad incumbent think tank with substantial work on American democracy, polarization, election integrity, and political violence. While much broader than PRL, Brookings competes for similar foundation dollars and policymaker attention on the same thematic territory.
• Cato Institute: Cato Institute is a broad incumbent think tank producing research on civil liberties, polarization, and democratic norms, including survey work on partisan attitudes. Cato overlaps thematically with PRL's policy research and shares some of the same foundation funder pool.
• NORC at the University of Chicago: NORC is a broad incumbent that conducts large-scale academic and policy survey research, including the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research on democratic attitudes. PRL and NORC compete for similar academic and foundation clients seeking high-quality survey infrastructure and methodological rigor.

Emerging players

• More in Common: More in Common is an emerging peer focused on polarization, partisan animosity, and bridging divides across democracies, with research arms in the US, UK, France, and Germany. Their work on attitudes toward out-parties and democratic norms directly overlaps PRL's American Views on Democracy dashboard.
• Marquette Law School Poll: Marquette Law School Poll is an emerging academic peer producing regular public opinion polling on political attitudes, election preferences, and democratic norms, primarily in Wisconsin but with national reach. It competes for similar academic, media, and policy audiences as PRL's weekly survey waves.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key highlights2 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/polarization-research-lab

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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