Hosts of “The View,” MSNBC, and CNN jumped on the results of a Des Moines Register poll that found Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by three points in Iowa.
J. Ann Selzer, veteran pollster, announced she was done with election polling and would be moving on to “other ventures” after her pre-election Iowa poll inaccurately showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading now President-elect Donald Trump in the state he had won easily in 2016 and 2020.
“Over a year ago, I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities,” said Selzer in a Sunday op-ed in the Des Moines Register.
“Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course. It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite. I am proud of the work I’ve done for the Register, the Detroit Free Press, the Indianapolis Star, Bloomberg News, and other public and private organizations interested in elections. They were great clients and were happy with my work,” Selzer continued.
A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll published on November 2 found Harris leading Trump in Iowa 47% to 44%. This was a seven-point shift from September Iowa polling, which found Trump with a four-point advantage over Harris.
In the prior two elections, Trump won the state handily by a substantial margin, defeating Hillary Clinton by 9.4 percentage points in 2016 and Joe Biden by 8.2 percentage points in 2020.
“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said Selzer to the Des Moines Register at the time of Harris’ lead. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”
Selzer4 admitted in her op-ed on November 17 that the results were indeed “shocking,” but her “findings looked good,” and her history of accuracy over 30 years of polling may have “made the outlier position too comfortable.”
“Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist. So, I’m humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings,” wrote Selzer, thanking family and friends who have supported her amidst critics who questioned her “integrity.”
Selzer’s polling set off a media firestorm
Selzer’s polling set off a media firestorm in the last stretch of the 2024 election. Pundits on ABC’s “The View,” MSNBC, and CNN all celebrated the forecast as a sign of a wider shift in the Midwestern states to Harris.
“If this is accurate, and if anybody is accurate, it’s likely to be Ann Selzer in the Iowa poll. If this is accurate, it implies that Harris might be winning Iowa,” gushed Rachel Maddow, MSNBC host.
President-elect Trump won Iowa for the third time after this election, defeating VP Harris by more than 14 percentage points.
In a Des Moines Register op-ed days after the election, Selzer said her team was reviewing the data and confessed she’d been blasted by with queries asking if she had “manipulated” the data to show the vice president with a false lead.
The pollster suggested her polling may have galvanized voters to support the president-elect.
“In response to a critique that I ‘manipulated’ the data, or had been paid (by some anonymous source, presumably on the Democratic side), or that I was exercising psyops or some sort of voter suppression: I told more than one news outlet that the findings from this last poll could actually energize and activate Republican voters who thought they would likely coast to victory. Maybe that’s what happened,” Selzer offered in her op-ed published November 7.
Social media commentators seized on the polling following the election and mocked her over it.
“It was shockingly wrong,” broadcaster and journalist Piers Morgan posted on X. Trump just crushed Kamala in Iowa. Ms. Selzer’s poll was a turkey of Biblical proportions.”
“Selzer is a disgrace,” posted Washington Free Beacon reporter Joe Simonson on X.
