Famed Pollster Defends Shock Iowa Poll Showing Harris Trouncing Trump

The Iowa pollster who surprised pundits and politicians alike over the weekend with a poll showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump in the state said the poll was indicative of a modern reality: abortion has rallied Democrats.

J. Ann Selzer, whose pre-election polls have long predicted the eventual result in Iowa, said on MSNBC‘s The Weekend that she didn’t have “as much data as we might like about why this is happening,” referring to the Des Moines Register poll that showed Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points. However, she said, the data was consistent with the reporting the paper’s political reporters pursued throughout the election.

“Our consensus from the reporters who work this beat is that the abortion ban went into effect this past summer,” Selzer said, according to the Daily Mail. “I think it has gotten people interested in voting.”

Selzer, who has been described as the “best pollster in politics,” acknowledged that voters could swing toward Trump on Election Day, but she had personally seen less Trump signs than in 2020.

The poll was widely derided by Republicans, chief among them Trump. “All polls, except for one heavily skewed toward the Democrats by a Trump hater who called it totally wrong the last time, have me up, BY A LOT,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I LOVE THE FARMERS, AND THEY LOVE ME.”

An Emerson College poll did show Trump up by 10 points in Iowa, and a New York Times/Siena poll showed the two deadlocked across various swing states, signifying a historically close election—with a potential for a number of surprises.