President-elect Donald Trump reacted to pollster Ann Selzer‘s announcement that she would not be doing poll prediction anymore and would move on to other ventures and opportunities after her poll wrongly predicted that Kamala Harris would be ahead of Donald Trump in Iowa. The poll created a ripple ahead of the election as all other polls threw their weight behind Kamala Harris and Iowa going blue from red was a shock — but Donald Trump at that time called the poll fake.
After ‘queen of polling’ Selzer announced her exit from this poll prediction business Sunday, Trump said there should be an investigation. “She knew exactly what she was doing,” Trump said.
“A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time. She knew exactly what she was doing. Thank you to the GREAT PEOPLE OF IOWA for giving me such a record breaking vote, despite possible ELECTION FRAUD by Ann Selzer and the now discredited “newspaper” for which she works. An investigation is fully called for!” Trump wrote.
What Ann Selzer got wrong
Selzer’s poll projected a 47 per cent to 44 per cent lead for Kamala Harris, three days before the election. On the election day, she was found to be off by 16 points and Trump won Iowa decisively. Selzer shot to fame in 2008 when she predicted that Barack Obama would bear Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucuses.
On how she got this year’s election wrong, Selzer said Harris was leading in early voting because of her strength with women. In a column published by the Des Moines Register Sunday, Selzer wrote she was wrong and willing to learn from her mistakes.
“Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course. It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite. I am proud of the work I’ve done for the Register, for the Detroit Free Press, for the Indianapolis Star, for Bloomberg News and for other public and private organizations interested in elections. They were great clients and were happy with my work.”
“There were shocking polls for each, to be sure. In the end, my findings looked good. Over 30 years of polling led to an A+ rating in Nate Silver’s analysis of pollsters’ track records of accuracy. I earned that rating in Silver’s first list, and my grade never dropped. Maybe that history of accuracy made the outlier position too comfortable.”
