Eleven months ago, The Des Moines Register published the results of a statewide poll showing Donald Trump with a large lead in the Republican Party’s presidential caucuses. At the time, the former president described the survey as “a big, beautiful poll” and praised pollster J. Ann Selzer.
The newspaper, the Republican candidate said, has “a great pollster — actually a very, very powerful pollster, a very good, talented pollster.”
That was before the Des Moines Register published the results of its latest statewide poll.
Kamala Harris is now leading Donald Trump in Iowa — a surprising reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory. A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters, just days before a high-stakes election that appears locked in key battleground states .
“It’s hard for anyone to say they saw this coming,” Selzer said.
That’s true. Trump won Iowa with relative ease during the last two election cycles; the Hawkeye State has drifted toward deeper shades of red in recent years; and as recently as June, with President Joe Biden still seeking a second term, the same pollster found the former president with an 18-point lead.
And yet the latest results showed Harris with a three-point lead. (Click the link to learn more about the survey’s methodology and margin of error.)
Is the poll an outlier? That’s entirely possible, and given that Democrats haven’t flooded Iowa with ads and appearances in recent weeks, it’s a safe bet that the Harris campaign’s internal polling isn’t nearly as favorable as the Register/ Mediacom.
If pressed, I could probably come up with some rationalization to help justify the findings — an unpopular, Republican-imposed abortion ban recently went into effect in the state — but all told, Selzer’s numbers are either an outlier, or Selzer’s figures are an outlier. The Democratic vice president is likely to enjoy Election Day quite a bit.
But just as interesting as the data was the Republican candidate’s response to the data.
Shortly after the newspaper published the election results, Trump published an item on his social media platform condemning the data as “heavily skewed… by a Trump hater.”
Remember, it was less than a year ago when the former president celebrated Selzer as a “great,” “very good” and “talented” pollster. Now, however, the public is expected to dismiss her as nothing more than “a Trump hater.”
Hours after the online item was published, the Republican candidate spoke at a rally, and citing the release of polling data he didn’t like, he added: “It’s called suppression. They oppress. And it should actually be illegal.”
Trump went on to describe the polls – at least the polls that tell him what he doesn’t want to hear – as “corrupt.”
What does Trump plan to do about pollsters who release data he considers “illegal”? That’s hard to say, but I think it depends on whether or not he wins a second term.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
