6 Min Read
There is a particular kind of momentum that does not show up in headlines. It builds one positive experience at a time, in the gap between what a company promises and what it actually delivers. It compounds in the conversations people have with friends, in the loyalty of customers who did not need to be won back, in the simple, durable truth that a company did what it said it would do.
That momentum is what The Harris Poll’s new Challengers List is designed to capture.
Introduced for the first time alongside the 2026 Axios Harris Poll 100, the Challengers List identifies companies with strong reputation and high momentum in America. These are companies not yet visible enough to appear in the ranked 100, but likely on their way. They have loyal followings and are building the kind of reputational foundation that historically precedes significant public recognition.
What the Challengers List measures
To qualify for the Challengers List, a company must meet a specific set of criteria:
- A familiarity level below 60% among the American public
- A reputation score in the “very good” or “excellent” range
- Among the highest momentum as measured by The Harris Poll’s ongoing brand tracking platform
In other words, these are companies that may not yet be a household name – but among those who do know them, the verdict is compellingly positive.
The list spans categories and sectors. What unites them is the quality and consistency of what they deliver, and the degree to which consumers who have experienced them feel genuinely better for it.
Why this matters now
The introduction of the Challengers List reflects something the 2026 data shows clearly: a half-decade of neglect by many of America’s largest companies has left consumers underserved. The implicit promise that established companies would continue to earn trust through quality, value, and genuine care has, for many Americans, gone unfulfilled.
Into that gap, a new class of companies is emerging – delivering what consumers actually want: quality, style, innovation, and genuine value. They are not coasting on the reputation equity of a previous era. They are building something new, and the American public is noticing.
Familiarity is the only thing standing in their way
The single variable that separates the Challengers from the ranked 100 is awareness. These companies have not yet reached the visibility needed to be nominated for the main ranking – but their strong reputation and upward momentum suggest they may be on their way.
What to watch
The Challengers List signals something important about the broader reputation landscape. The consumer needs these companies are meeting, and the values they demonstrate, show where American consumer trust is heading market share may attract visibility, but it is not a safeguard for reputation. Companies that consistently deliver on values, quality, and innovation can step in and earn the loyalty that incumbents take for granted.
For organizations already ranked 100, the Challengers List carries a pointed message: the trust you have earned is not permanent.
What comes next
The Axios Harris Poll 100 is a snapshot – a precise and nationally representative read on where the American public stands on the companies most present in their lives. But reputation does not move once a year. It moves continuously, shaped by everything a company does, says, and is perceived to stand for.
The Harris Poll tracks reputation and brand health year-round, providing the kind of ongoing intelligence that turns an annual study into a strategic asset. If you want to understand what this year’s findings mean for your company, your category, or the landscape you are operating in, our team is ready to talk.
Methodology
The Axios Harris Poll 100 is a trusted ranking of the reputations of companies most on the minds of Americans, with a framework Harris has used since 1999. The survey findings are a result of a three-step process.
- We first surveyed 6,226 Americans from a nationally representative online sample from December 15th to 22nd, 2025, to understand the public’s top-of-mind awareness of companies that either excel or falter in society. Respondents are asked which two companies — in their opinion — stand out as having the best reputation today and which two have the worst. All nominations are compiled into an aggregate list to determine the “most visible” companies. (Subsidiaries and brands are tallied within the parent company to create a total number of nominations for each company.)
- Once we have a list of the 100 most-visible companies in America, we then deployed a second online survey to analyze those companies further. The second survey of 18,523 Americans from a nationally representative sample ran from February 13th to March 3rd, 2026. Respondents are first asked which of the 100 most visible companies from the first survey they are familiar with. From there, respondents are asked to rate two of the 100 most visible companies that they say they are “very familiar or somewhat with” on six dimensions of reputation to calculate a Reputational Quotient, or RQ®, score for each. The RQ® score determines the ranking of each company in The Axios Harris Poll 100. Each company score is comprised of a statistically significant sample size of 325 respondents weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult public on key demographics.
- Lastly, we asked a third and final set of respondents in a separate set of online surveys about contextual questions on topics related to companies and politics. The contextual findings were conducted online over two waves between April 9th to 11th and May 7th to 9th, 2026 among two nationally representative samples of 2,028 and 2,148 U.S. adults, respectively.
