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The Selzer Reality Check

The legendary J. Ann Selzer is far from the only pollster who has some explaining to do in the wake of Trump’s sweeping, comprehensive, and realignment-cementing victory. For the third straight presidential cycle, the polling industry complex has emerged with a jumbo omelette’s worth of egg all over its face.

donald trump
Selzer is far from the only pollster who has some explaining to do in the wake of Trump’s sweeping, comprehensive, realignment-cementing victory. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
John Heilemann
November 8, 2024

In a presidential election that was, by a wide margin, the most frequently and heavily polled—or, depending on your P.O.V., ridiculously over-polled—race for the White House in history, no single public-opinion survey made as big a splash as the final installment of the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. Conducted by the legendary polling maestro J. Ann Selzer, the Iowa Poll sent the political world into a full-blown, top-to-bottom tizzy when it dropped last Saturday night and showed Kamala Harris with a three-point lead, 47-44 percent, over Donald Trump.