Last night's polling out of Iowa threw the conservatives into a shock as the Ann Selzer polling projected Kamala Harris ahead in the ruby-red state. Donald Trump won Iowa in both 2016 and 2020 and the polling in which he was 3 percentage points behind Kamala Harris rattled the former president too. He called the polling fake and Ann Selzer a Trump-hater.
"No President has done more for FARMERS, and the Great State of Iowa, than Donald J. Trump. In fact, it’s not even close! All polls, except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater who called it totally wrong the last time, have me up, BY A LOT. I LOVE THE FARMERS, AND THEY LOVE ME. THE JUST OUT EMERSON POLL HAS ME UP 10 POINTS IN IOWA. THANK YOU!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The poll, conducted by Selzer & Co for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom, was released Saturday. It found that 47 per cent of Iowa voters supported Harris and 44 per cent supported Trump. The Emerson College poll also released on Saturday gave Trump a 9-point lead.
Pollster Ann Selzer reacts to backlash
In an email to Newsweek, Ann Selzer said: "These are the kinds of comments seen for virtually any poll, including mine. The Des Moines Register includes a methodology statement with each story they publish. It's the same methodology used to show Trump winning Iowa in the final polls in 2016 and 2020. It would not be in my best interest, or that of my clients—The Des Moines Register and Mediacom—to conjure fake numbers."
Selzer's poll surveyed 808 likely Iowa voters between October 28 and 31. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 point, which Harris' lead is within.
Nate Silver on Selzer Iowa polls
Nate Silver said Selzer has a history of being right but this time she is probably wrong. "Releasing this poll took an incredible amount of guts because — let me state this as carefully as I can — if you had to play the odds, this time Selzer will probably be wrong. Harris’s chances of winning Iowa nearly doubled in our model from 9 percent to 17 percent tonight, which isn’t nothing. Polymarket shows a similar trend, moving from 6 percent to 18 percent after the survey. But that still places Harris’s odds at around 5:1 against," Silver wrote.