J. Ann Selzer, the pollster behind the shock voter survey that incorrectly predicted Iowa would turn blue in the 2024 election, is speaking out about the attacks she has faced for the wrong prediction.
The outlier poll, sponsored by the Des Moines Register, had raised eyebrows when it was released in early November because it showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading now President-elect Donald Trump by three percentage points in a state considered safe for the Republicans. Trump ultimately won the state by more than 13 percentage points.
In an interview with PBS’s Iowa Press broadcast on Friday, Selzer dismissed any suggestion from her opponents that she had somehow manipulated the data.
“I’m baffled as to what motivation anyone would think I had and what I would act on in such a public poll. I don’t understand,” she said.
Still, Selzer said she takes the allegations against her “very seriously.”
“They say this was election interference, which is a crime,” she said.
Selzer added that those who criticize her work are wrongly suggesting that, without a shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with anyone, I was paid by someone to provide a specific finding.
“It’s hard to pay too much attention to it other than them accusing me of a crime,” she said.
Trump, who comfortably won the 2024 presidential election, was one of Selzer’s most prominent critics, accusing both her and the Register of committing “possible ELECTION FRAUD” over the poll, which he described as “totally fake” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Prior to this latest poll, Selzer’s track record in The Hawkeye State was virtually spotless, with only a miss in the 2018 gubernatorial contest. For example, she carried the final results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential races in the state and the margin of President Barack’s victory Obama in Iowa in 2012.
During her appearance on “Iowa Press,” Selzer was also asked if she had identified the reasons why her methodology did not serve her well in this race despite her previous successes.
“I wish I knew the answer to that, but like I said, there was nothing that we saw that needed to be fixed,” she said. “The reality is that more people have come out to support Donald Trump. I’m eagerly awaiting the [Iowa] The Foreign Secretary’s attendance report that will take place in January.”
Nearly two weeks after the election, Selzer announced that she is ending her voting career to seize new opportunities. In a column published in the Des Moines Register explaining the decision, Selzer noted that she had been planning to part ways with the outlet long before the election results.
“Would I have wanted to make this announcement after a final poll in line with Election Day results?” she wrote. “Of course. It’s ironic that it’s quite the opposite.”
