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Analysis: What to Make of the Shock Poll Showing Harris Ahead in...Iowa?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  November 04, 2024 10:05 AM

I'll have a broader look at the national and swing state polling picture later today, but let's start by discussing a stunner of a poll that was released over the weekend. The final 2024 Des Moines Register/Ann Selzer survey, which is considered the gold standard in the state, released results showing Kamala Harris vaulting into the lead over Donald Trump in the Hawkeye State. The same polling series showed Trump blowing Biden out by double digits in June, shortly before Biden's debate fiasco and subsequent forced withdrawal from the race. Months later, this survey raised eyebrows by depicting Iowa as closer than expected, but with Trump still ahead. And now, per Selzer, Harris is three points up, just days before the election. The poll is definitionally an outlier, and a big one. The question is whether it's a canary in the coal mine, portending serious problems for Trump on Tuesday, or whether it will be looked back upon as a very high-profile failure, in retrospect.

Let's start with the reasons why Trump supporters may feel genuinely concerned about this survey outcome, then we'll move to the causes for skepticism. While it's true that Selzer's polls have occasionally missed somewhat badly, including underestimating Republicans in a number of cases, she has built a strong reputation over many years for a reason. In 2016, she shocked many political observers by publishing a final poll giving Trump a seven-point lead in Iowa, which looked like a significant outlier at the time. Trump ended up winning the state by more than nine points; Selzer, unlike others, had been within the ballpark. Looking back, his remarkable strength in Iowa that year – along with his comfortable victory in Ohio – ended up representing data points that allowed the "blue wall" sweep of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to make sense. Four years later, in 2020, the Selzer poll came within roughly a point of nailing Trump's Iowa margin (barely underestimating him), which was slightly diminished from 2016. Trump's slight loss of altitude in Iowa translated into a similar effect in the three crucial states, all of which Biden won narrowly.

All of which is to say: If this poll's top line (Harris +3) proves to be even somewhat accurate-ish, up to and including a low-single-digit Trump victory in Iowa, that will likely mean very dark things for his prospects of winning the presidency. A competitive Iowa, let alone a Harris-won Iowa, could well mean curtains for Trump. If women and seniors and others are really swarming to Harris in the sorts of numbers Selzer published in a red-tinted state – remember, Iowa was one of the places where a red wave actually did happen in 2022 – it would be hard to see Trump as anything other than cooked. But is the poll credible? Given her track record, I refuse to simply dismiss it out of hand, even if I do find it rather suspicious that the results were reportedly leaked in advance to Democratic sources. I also think back to a 2020 incident in which a DMR poll was "scrapped" at the last minute due to a "mishap." That was odd. All that being said, the poll's underlying assumptions would mean that Iowa's electorate is about to look dramatically different than how it's looked in recent cycles. Compare the survey findings (left) to the 2020 exit polls in Iowa (right):


If Selzer's poll is accurate, Iowa's electorate has moved 11 points toward Democrats since 2020 (Iowa's conservative governor was re-elected by nearly 20 points two years ago). Iowa senior citizens have moved 30 points toward Democrats. Women have moved 17 points in the same direction. Men and rural voters have become strikingly less Republican. The suburbs have careened 26 points away from Trump's 2020 performance. Both college-educated and non-college-educated and migrated notably leftward. The top issue, per respondents, above everything else, is "democracy." Yet independents have only budged a little bit? I am truly baffled. Then toss this information into the mix:


Iowa Republicans have performed better in early voting than they ever have over the last seven major elections, while Democrats' early vote share is at its lowest level. This is indicative of a massive leftward swing of the electorate? In 2020, Democrats had a 14-point lead in the early vote, then Trump won the state by eight points anyway. Republicans have erased the EV deficit this year. And again, if independents haven't really swung too drastically in the Selzer poll, would this mean huge swaths of...Republicans are voting en masse against Trump? I suppose anything is possible, but does that seem remotely plausible, based on basically all other data we have available? Nate Silver sounds skeptical, while still venerating Selzer, concluding that someone has to be very wrong. Again, if she turns out to be right, a lot of other polling is going to look catastrophically wrong. And the mass polling errors will cut hard against Trump this time. Or perhaps she's catastrophically wrong. The electorate she has detected in the Hawkeye State is a 2020 Biden electorate, in a state Biden lost by eight points in 2020:

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Some people are citing abortion as a huge mover that may explain things, but the state's Republican governor who signed major abortion limitations into law was overwhelmingly re-elected after the Dobbs decision, in which Roe was overturned. And then there's this:


Relatedly, I spoke to several highly plugged-in Iowa Republican sources about the poll, both of whom seemed astonished and disbelieving of its findings. One simply said "no way," as another noted that other internal polling at the legislative level does not even come close to reflecting what Selzer found. It's also worth noting that another major pollster, albeit not with the reputation of Selzer in Iowa, produced a poll of the state on the very same day that her's dropped like a bomb. Its results were different by 13 points:


If Trump wins Iowa by nine or ten points, he has a very good shot at winning the whole ballgame. If he's losing Iowa, or even modestly leading, it could be a Kamala rout. One more thought on this: Iowa and Ohio have tracked rather similarly in recent years, migrating from battlegrounds to red states. Nothing is permanent, but that's what they've become lately. Ohio and Iowa voted for Trump at similar rates in 2016 and 2020. They each bucked the national trend and did experience red waves in 2022. There has been a lot of polling of Ohio this year because of an important and competitive Senate race. Have we seen any indications of big blue movement out of Buckeyeland? The numbers have repeatedly shown Trump ahead by a strong margin, with the real question being either the incumbent Democratic Senator can overcome it and hang on for re-election against his Republican challenger in a very tight race. Is it possible that Ohio will surprise us all and be much closer than it was in either of the last few elections? Or is it possible that Ohio will stay quite red, while Iowa veers off in a completely different direction? Again, I suppose anything is possible. 

I've seen some people suggesting that this is all part of some psyop, designed to depress GOP turnout ahead of Election Day. Even if Selzer is a liberal, why would she torch her carefully-gained reputation to publish something that would be embarrassingly disproven just a few days later? Mercifully, we will have actual results very soon, so all the speculation can be put to bed. Vote.