A much-watched poll from Iowa points to a Harris landslide

As the election approaches its climax, dozens of opinion polls of American voters are churned out each day. None is so eagerly awaited as the final Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of Iowa, produced by Selzer & Co, a polling firm. On “Election Twitter”—the colloquial name for a community of political-data junkies on X—this particular poll has taken on a legendary status. On the evening of November 2nd, it showed Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump in Iowa, sending Election Twitter into a frenzy. Why?

Selzer & Co is a high-quality pollster. It is rated as one of the best in the country by FiveThirtyEight, a data-journalism outfit that tracks polling accuracy. The Selzer Poll is recognised for its success projecting the Iowa caucus—the early test that has been a staging ground for presidential nominees. And the pollster’s predictive powers in presidential elections has been stretched beyond Iowa, the state it usually surveys.

In the past five presidential elections, the final Iowa polls by Selzer and Co have had an average absolute error of 3.1 percentage points in the state. They have predicted the result in Iowa correctly four out of five times—an impressive record. But the most surprising thing about this record is that the Selzer Poll performs better in some states other than Iowa, where its respondents live.

R&I ~ MJM

Crazycat

Article URL : https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/11/03/a-much-watched-poll-from-iowa-points-to-a-harris-landslide

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