Below is some of the most interesting reaction and analysis of Saturday’s stunning Selzer poll. (We’ll keep updating this with more commentary as it comes out.)
Several analysts have pointed to other similar signs in recent polling:
Soltis Anderson adds:
Two things are possible: 1) This Selzer poll is right and we are witnessing an absolutely wild inversion of the left-right generation gap; OR 2) Trump-favoring seniors are sitting out polls this year in extraordinary fashion and it is leading to some wild crosstabs.
RCP’s Sean Trende is warning against interpreting the poll as far-reaching definitive evidence:
Nate Silver notes that the Selzer poll doesn’t have much effect on his forecast, but that doesn’t mean its potential insight can be dismissed:
Before you get your hopes up too much, another Iowa poll today from Emerson College had Trump ahead by 9 points instead. Still, Harris’s chances in Iowa roughly doubled from 9 percent to 17 percent.
However, the poll had little effect on our topline Electoral College numbers because Iowa has only a 1 percent chance of being the tipping-point state. In the world where Harris wins Iowa, she is probably also cleaning up elsewhere in the Midwest, particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin, in which case she’s already almost certain to win the Electoral College. So most of the time, it would be redundant.
Still, to have a prominent, high-quality pollster like this at a time when most other pollsters are herding toward the consensus suggests the possibility that other pollsters could be lowballing Harris.
FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich adds:
Selzer & Co. has earned a reputation for outliers that are later proven to be correct. Obama+7 in the 2008 Iowa caucuses. Trump+7 in the 2020 general. But it’s also had misses, like Hubbell+2 in #IAgov in 2018.
In general, you should trust polling averages over outliers, but be cognizant of the *possibility* that the outlier may be picking up on a late trend. I recommend doing the same in this case.
Split Ticket’s Max McCall and Lakshya Jain warn against Harris landslide dreams:
While no other poll has shown quite this monumental of a shift, if you squint, there are perhaps hints of something similar happening in polls of similar states. Harris has polled exceptionally well in Nebraska’s second congressional district, and some polls of Nebraska statewide show a shift toward her as well. There was also a recent poll of Kansas that only had Trump up 48-43, a seeming outlier, but one perhaps worth taking a second look at in the wake of this poll.
Does this poll imply a Harris landslide? That’s one interpretation we’re skeptical of — even setting aside the outlier nature of this poll, it is worth noting that even a perfectly accurate Iowa poll cannot say much about states like Georgia or Arizona, where the whites vote differently from the Midwest.
Also, a note about methodology:
The state’s draconian abortion ban could be having an impact, too, as Steve Kornacki notes with a timeline:
June: DMR poll has Trump +18 vs. Biden in Iowa
July 29: Iowa’s six-week abortion ban goes into effect with intense controversy and news coverage
September 22: DMR poll shows 59-37% opposition to new abortion law — 69% among women. Also shows Trump lead over Harris at just 47-43%
All fall: Saturation ad spending and campaigning on abortion by Dem candidates in the state’s two toss-up House races
Now: Final DMR poll has massive gen der gap pushing Harris into 47-44% lead
At Semafor, Benjy Sarlin points out that maybe the campaigns should have been paying more attention to Iowa:
For the first cycle in recent memory, Iowa has definitively not been treated as a swing state by either presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the seven top battleground states have seen billions of dollars in ad spending, constant visits from candidates, and extensive canvassing operations. For that reason, it was my strong personal prior before the Selzer poll dropped to not assume it would be as predictive of other states this time.
That said, the Selzer result is so stunning that it raises an entirely different scenario that does have recent precedent: A presidential campaign failing to notice a state that once seemed safe falling into competition until it’s too late.
Members of the Trump team, meanwhile, are not impressed.
