Veteran Iowa pollster Ann Selzer—whose impressive track record is now under scrutiny following an unusual Hawkeye State poll showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by three percentage points—expressed confusion over what “D” and “R” represented in her own cross tabs. Although Selzer’s polls have long been regarded as the gold standard in Iowa, her latest presidential poll is raising eyebrows due to its surprising findings.
If her results are accurate, it would indicate a dramatic 11-point shift to the left in the state within one election cycle, considering Trump won Iowa by eight percentage points in the previous election. Additionally, the poll found Harris leading among senior voters by 19 points, despite this demographic supporting Trump by nine points in 2020 and four points in 2016. Conservative political analyst Ryan Girdusky analyzed the cross tabs of Selzer’s poll and compared them with her 2020 exit poll results, stating that the results were “straight crazy.”
For the indies to move nothing, she’s saying Republicans are shifting further to left than independents.
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) November 3, 2024
On Sunday, Selzer joined veteran political reporter Mark Halperin to discuss the results on the latest episode of 2Way. “Okay. Could you just go through and say what you think about those criticisms?” Halperin asked in reference to Girdusky’s post. “Well, I’m trying, this is in a format that’s a little difficult for me to see. What does this D represent and the R represent?” the veteran pollster replied, seemingly not knowing that “R” and “D” stand for “Republicans” and “Democrats.”
“So they’re saying that, and again, he says, read through the cells are cross-tabbed. So they’re saying that they know that this poll shows, and again, they say your sample is 3% more Democrats than Republican, whereas the electorate last time was 8% more Republican,” Halperin then explained. “It says that you had Indies voting Democrat plus four, whereas last time they voted for plus seven plus four. So they’re saying if you compare what you have with what happened in 20, according to the exit polls, it’s way too big a change across all these groups in a uniform way towards pro-Harris as opposed to Trump.”
“Yeah, well, this is the first time I’m seeing this, and so it’s sort of against my nature to think I understand everything that this is saying. And I haven’t cross-checked these numbers to know how that actually pans out,” Selzer answered. “But I’m going to say that it’s it is clear that senior women are an advantage to Kamala Harris in our poll. Kamala Harris wins by more than two to one, actually maybe even more than that among senior women. Kamala Harris wins by more than two to one, actually maybe even more than that among senior women.”
WATCH:
