J. Ann Selzer is retiring from election polling just weeks after her once-respected poll showed that Kamala Harris was leading in Iowa — only for Trump to win the state by more than 13 percentage points on Election Day.
The much-mocked Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll, released the Saturday before Election Day, erroneously projected Vice President Kamala Harris 3 points ahead of President-elect Donald Trump in the race for Iowa’s six electoral votes.
That was a 7-point shift toward Harris from the same survey a month prior, and 16 points off the real election result.
The poll sent shockwaves across the country, sparking hope among Democrats that Harris had a chance to win a state that Trump carried effortlessly in 2016 and 2020.
Once considered a swing state, Iowa is now reliably red, and hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential contest since reelecting Barack Obama in 2012.
In a guest op-ed for The Des Moines Register, the veteran Iowa pollster claimed her departure has been in the works for over a year, and plans to transition “to other ventures and opportunities.”
“Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day