In the final days before the 2024 Presidential Election, the Des Moines Register released a poll that was obviously off. Ann Selzer’s “poll” purported to show Kamala Harris winning in Iowa by three percent.
At the time, The Iowa Standard was more than confident the poll was not just “off,” but not even based in a potential reality. On Trump’s worst day, we thought he’d win Iowa by five points. He was likely going to win Iowa by eight or nine points, we thought, but kept open the possibility he’d win by 12-13 points on a great night.
We put all that in writing in advance of the election without commissioning a single pollster to figure it out for us.
Sure enough, Trump won Iowa by double digits. He emerged with more than a 13-point win.
Keep in mind that this same poll was supposedly the “gold standard” and garnered national attention in the final days leading up to the election.
Over the weekend, Selzer announced she would end election polling and instead pivot to “other ventures.”
But President Donald J. Trump doesn’t appear to be letting it go that easily.
“A totally fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “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!”
