Staff Reports
The 2024 election season has now entered its final days, and one of the latest polls from self-proclaimed “gold standard” pollster Ann Selzer has thrown a monkey wrench into the political discourse. As Iowa gears up for another round of voting, Selzer’s poll shows Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by a slender three-point margin in a state that Trump previously dominated by eight points in 2020. This scenario isn’t just eyebrow-raising; it’s more similar to a bad Saturday Night Live skit than a reflection of Iowa’s political landscape.
Trump’s hold on Iowa has been robust over the last decade, as the state has firmly embraced its red identity. Some Democrats have seized upon this questionable poll to herald a so-called tsunami of support for their failing vice president, hoping against hope that such wild speculation will somehow translate into actual votes. Yet the reality is that such a significant swing in a traditionally red state begs for a serious reality check.
The glaring issues with Selzer’s findings are hard to overlook. For example, the notion that Harris is leading among seniors by a jaw-dropping 19 points is as plausible as the idea of Biden stacking wood. Trump, after all, won the senior vote in Iowa by a healthy nine-point margin in 2020. The question arises: what monumental shift has occurred in the minds of Iowa’s senior citizens to gravitate them away from Trump so dramatically? Answer: nothing. This kind of polling would confuse even the most seasoned political analysts—it simply doesn’t add up.
We Need to Talk About That Selzer Poll in Iowa That Has Democrats Predicting a Harris Landslidehttps://t.co/MygDo86Arr
— RedState (@RedState) November 3, 2024
Even more shocking is the poll’s representation of the overall electorate. A Democrat +3 composition in Iowa—a state Trump won by eight points just four years ago—stretches credulity beyond its breaking point. It seems this poll not only defies past trends but suggests an alternative reality where the electorate has shifted sharply leftward overnight. Additional numbers in the crosstabs do little to convince the skeptics who would see them as nothing more than a contrived narrative.
And if anyone needed further proof that this poll is a fantasy, look no further than Selzer’s dubious implications about Congress. In a jaw-dropping assertion, she claims that Democrats are on track to capture two of Iowa’s four congressional seats—despite Republicans currently holding all four. The idea that an incumbent, such as Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, would be trailing by an astonishing 16 points defies everything that has been observed in local and national races. If the polling results weren’t so ridiculous, they might be laughable.
Finally, Selzer’s poll claims that Iowans are suddenly more concerned with “democracy” than tangible issues like inflation and the economy. It’s pretty clear that these concerns don’t reflect the backbone of Iowan values. It seems absurd to think that in the midst of soaring prices and economic uncertainty, voters are prioritizing wishy-washy concepts instead of their wallets.
How did this happen? One can’t help but wonder if Selzer’s poll was engineered to buoy Harris, given her ties to the likes of Hillary Clinton and J.B. Pritzker. While the reasoning behind it remains murky, the implications are stark. As the countdown to election day continues, one thing is certain: the reality of the Iowa electorate is much different from the outlandish predictions of Selzer’s poll, which seems destined for the recycling bin of political history.
