Joe Lenski

Joe Lenski is co-founder and Executive Vice President of Edison Research.  Under his supervision, Edison Research currently conducts all exit polls in the United States for the four major news organizations comprising the National Election Pool (NEP) - ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC.  Edison Research has conducted all state and national exit polling for the NEP since 2003 including the presidential primaries and general elections in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024.  Edison Research has also collected the vote count for the NEP for all U.S. elections since 2017.

Joe served as Councilor-at-Large for the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) from 2014 to 2016 and has also served as Secretary-Treasurer of AAPOR from 2010 to 2012. He has served for five years on the Executive Council of the New York chapter of AAPOR including terms as Program Chair, Vice President, and President.

Since founding Edison Media Research in 1994, Joe has overseen hundreds of research projects each year for some of the world's largest media companies, conducting survey research and providing strategic information to radio stations, television stations, newspapers, cable networks, record labels, Internet companies and other media organizations.  Edison Research also conducts research for successful radio stations in South America, Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe including research for the Voice of America Arab Language Radio Service “Radio Sawa.”  In 2012 and 2024 Edison Research conducted exit polls for national elections in Venezuela, in 2014 conducted the first exit poll in Iraq for the parliamentary election and has conducted exit polls in the Republic of Georgia in 2010, 2012, 2018 and 2020, 2022 and 2024.

Joe has worked as a Statistical Analyst for the CBS News/New York Times Poll from 1987-1989, and for the network exit polling consortium, Voter Research & Surveys and Voter News Service, from 1990 to 1994.  In addition to conducting several independent exit polls from 1996 to 2002, Edison Research designed and operated CNN RealVote, the vote gathering and election projections operation for CNN during the 2002 elections.

Joe has lectured on exit polling and survey research at numerous universities including Harvard University, Marist College, Rutgers University, Monmouth University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland.  He has been a featured speaker at many conferences and panels including Canadian Music Week and the Committee on National Statistics. He also served on the Professional Advisory Board for the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Iowa.

Joe is a graduate of Princeton University and studied at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.