Donald Trump is going after Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, weeks after she published a preelection poll that found Kamala Harris had “leapfrogged” the former president 47 to 44 percent in Iowa.
“A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time. She knew exactly what she was doing,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Sunday.
“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!”
Selzer’s poll had anticipated that Harris would lead Trump by three points in the state. In reality, he won Iowa by 13 points, making for a 16-point error. Until now, Selzer & Co. had been considered the gold standard of polling in the country.
Some have speculated that the Selzer poll’s failure to align with the actual results was because the poll had too many Democrats and college-educated voters. While Selzer’s philosophy of not correcting for these factors has worked in previous election years, this time it accounted for major differences from the outcome of the presidential election in the key swing state.
Trump shared a link to an op-ed Selzer wrote Sunday in The Des Moines Register, which had published her Iowa poll, announcing that she would be moving on from polling altogether.
“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,” Seltzer wrote. “Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course.”
After Iowa was called for Trump, his campaign gloated about the win—and called out the pollster by name. “Starting on Day 1 President Trump and Vice President JD Vance will help to ease costs, secure the border, and protect Social Security for retirees like Ann Selzer,” the campaign said in a statement.
While Selzer’s poll wasn’t an accurate predictor of the outcome in that state, it’s far from illegal for a poll to be wrong, and the president-elect’s penchant for targeting those who publish unflattering things about him is cause for serious concern.
“Welcome to the authoritarian weaponization of the state and waste of taxpayer $ on vanity crusades: Anyone whose work seems to criticize the leader or produce results that he does not like must be investigated,” authoritarianism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat warned on X.