Iowa ‘Polling Guru’ Ann Selzer Retires After Wildly Inaccurate 2024 Election Poll

Ann Selzer, who had garnered a reputation as the most accurate pollster in Iowa over the last few decades, announced that she will be retiring after her wildly inaccurate 2024 election poll that found Vice President Kamala Harris carrying the Hawkeye State by three percentage points. Trump ultimately won by 13 points in a race that was called less than an hour after polls closed.

Selzer’s final poll before Election Day, which was released with the Des Moines Register, generated waves of enthusiasm among left-wing pundits and election analysts after Sezler predicted that Vice President Kamala Harris would carry the state with 47 percent of the vote to just 44 percent for Trump. The result generated nearly unmatched euphoria among Democrats, who believed that the poll almost certainly meant that Harris would sweep the rust belt and crush the Trump movement forever.

While the survey was an outlier — as other reputable pollsters had Trump comfortably ahead — Democrats pointed to Selzer’s stellar reputation as a reason to believe the results.

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The result never came to fruition, however, as Trump easily carried the state by a 13-point margin, representing a 16-point miss for Selzer. The veteran pollster later acknowledged her poll was a “big miss” and suggested that the results might have “actually energize[d] and activate[d] Republican voters who thought they would likely coast to victory.”

Kristin Roberts, chief content officer of Gannett Media, which owns the Des Moines Register, told CNN that the survey will “evolve as we find new ways to accurately capture public sentiment and the pulse of Iowans on state and national issues.”

“Our mission is to provide trusted news and content to our readers and the public,” Roberts added. “We did not deliver on that promise when we shared results of the last Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, which did not accurately capture the outcome of the presidential election.”

The Des Moines Register poll long pre-dates Selzer, as it was founded in 1943. Selzer began working on the poll in 1987 as a staffer for the Register before founding her own firm, Selzer & Co. of West Des Moines, which has been in charge of the poll’s operations since 1997.

Prior to the disastrous 2024 poll, the Des Moines Register under Selzer’s leadership was considered the gold standard pollster in Iowa. Over the last six presidential election cycles, the poll failed to accurately predict the winner only once, when John Kerry led George W. Bush by five points in the poll’s last release before Election Day. Selzer also managed to predict a big victory for Barack Obama in 2008, though he did fall short of the poll’s projected blowout margin of 17 points.

In an op-ed published with The Register over the weekend, Selzer stated that her decision to move on was made long before the 2024 election poll was released. “Over a year ago I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities,” she wrote.

“Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist. So, I’m humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings,” Selzer went on to say. “My integrity means a lot to me. To those who have questioned it, there are likely no words to dissuade.

“In a separate column for the Register published on Sunday, executive editor Carol Hunter wrote that the survey will need to “evolve” in order to maintain its reputation.

The Register needs to “find new ways to accurately take the pulse of Iowans on state and national issues,” Hunter wrote. “Our intention is to reimagine how to best capture public sentiment and opinion among Iowans to provide valuable and accurate insight into legislative issues and politics.”

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