Why we know the Iowa Selzer final poll is wrong

November 3, 2024 | Political Ref | Permalink

The Iowa Selzer final poll shockingly finds Harris leading by three in a now GOP stronghold, Iowa. In a clear example of strategic political polling, this pollster has decided to impact the national political narrative by manipulating the numbers.

We have seen strategic political polling with another so-called gold standard pollster recently, the New York Times. They have consistently found Harris stronger in Pennsylvania than other credible pollsters. In a year where many believe everything rides on Pennsylvania, the New York Times consistently shows Harris with a real lead. This allows the media to report that Harris is hanging in there. Strategic polling achieves a desired political end.

UPDATE, 11/3/24, 7:50AM. New York Times releases its final Pennsylvania poll showing a stunning reversal in fortunes for Trump, who is now tied! aka - CYA poll. Proves my point, they were using their PA poll for politically strategic reasons all along.

Unfortunately, other credible pollsters do not replicate their findings and the national numbers strongly disagree with this possibility. Do we live in a political reality where Pennsylvania will end up four to five points left of the national vote? That's what the New York Times polling has shown. It will be wrong.

Likewise, the final Selzer Iowa poll showing Harris with a three-point lead in Iowa will not only pick the wrong winner, but will match the 2020 ABC/Washington Post end of October Wisconsin poll showing Biden up by seventeen for its blatant aim to suppress the vote and impact the overall political narrative.

Two clear signs point to the Iowa poll's virtually certain demise in credibility. First, the poll did not release a voter model or cross-tabs. Refusing to release this data insults the intelligence of your readers. I would not dream of making a claim about where a political race stands without offering evidence. Your readers should have the opportunity to check your work and your assumptions. Refusing to offer this is prima facie evidence of deception.

This lack of transparency demonstrates the out-of-touch attitude of media elites in this open-source age. Stop citing anecdotal quotes from voters supporting your findings in polls. Use that valuable space to first link to your sample and cross-tabs, then write in depth about the data. I'll re-purpose an Obama quote; the 1980s wants its poll reporting back.

Give us the numbers and we want all of them. Make sure you provide the cross-tabs relating to your final likely voter top line that's in the headline, and not just the registered voter cross-tabs. But Selzer fails to do this, or at least I could not find the data. Instead we gets bits and pieces that offer only the faintest glimpse of survey data. This lack of transparency undermines the poll completely.

Second, what little sample data we did receive served the purpose of further undermining the poll's finding, which also shows why they did not pull back that curtain in full. The pollster revealed the partisan vote piecemeal throughout the article. Democrats voted 97-0 for Harris, Independents for Harris 46-39 and GOP for Trump 89-5. I'm willing to believe this party vote, although I think its an outlier in Iowa. What I'm not willing to believe is that this leads to a three-point Harris lead in the state.

To believe this I would need to accept that Republicans only outnumber Democrats by four points in Iowa. In 2020 the GOP had a ten-point advantage. When Republicans have surged in registration nationwide and another "gold standard," Gallup, shows a favorable political environment for Republicans because there are more of them now, I'm expected to accept that Democratic registration is surging in Iowa? Sorry, it's ridiculous.

Look at the spreadsheet below for a demonstration of where Democratic registration needs to sit in Iowa to achieve a +3 Harris lead using the Iowa poll's own reported party vote. Independents would need to surge to forty percent, GOP needs to lose four points and Dems gain two as compared to 2020. When you apply the party split from 2020, you get a three-point lead for Trump 47-44. Iowa poll, it was good knowing ya.