A pollster’s reputation rests on one thing: whether and how often they’re right. Over the last few years, Ann Selzer of the Des Moines Register has been the most respected pollster in the business, frequently getting things right and seeing trends in advance that other pollsters have missed.
This year, in her final pre-election poll, released on the Saturday before election day, Selzer had Kamala Harris leading in Iowa by three points, even though Harris had been thought behind in that state in every other poll for most of the cycle. That gave Harris supporters hope, especially that she could complete well in Midwestern battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin.
Ann Selzer is retiring from election polling. https://t.co/mYOcsTmEoH
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) November 17, 2024
Selzer was wrong this time. Trump won Iowa by 14 points and swept every battleground state. Selzer’s “gold standard” reputation took a major hit, and on Sunday, she announced her retirement from the polling business. Selzer wrote, in an op-ed for the newspaper, that she had decided to step away from polling a year ago, and her decision had nothing to do with the November polling miss.
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The result was embarrassing for Selzer, but what didn’t happen was that the pollster put her thumb on the scales to help her preferred candidate. She would have no professional incentive to do so, and it’s not clear how such a poll would even help Harris.
However, that’s not how Donald Trump sees things. On Truth Social on Sunday, Trump called for an investigation into Selzer’s poll.
“A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time,” the president-elect said. “She knew exactly what she was doing. Thank you to the GREAT PEOPLE OF IOWA for giving me such a record breaking vote, despite possible ELECTION FRAUD by Ann Selzer and the now discredited “newspaper” for which she works. An investigation is fully called for!”
Trump’s charges make little sense. Selzer’s polls in the past have favored Trump, and her final poll in 2020 had Trump ahead by more in Iowa than most other pollsters saw- and it proved accurate. Furthermore, there’s no evidence that Selzer did anything improper or unethical. There’s also absolutely no precedent for a pollster facing criminal jeopardy for “election fraud,” nor is there any reason even a purposely fake poll would be considered a criminal act. (There is an internal company probe — though not a criminal one — into how the Iowa poll was leaked early.)
As the second Trump presidency approaches, this indicates that Trump will be demanding criminal investigations of everyone who has so much as inconvenienced him.
Photo courtesy of Political Tribune media library.
