You have heard about it by now. It is in all the newspapers , broadcast media etc:
Iowa Poll: Kamala Harris leapfrogs Donald Trump to take lead near Election Day. Here’s how
Never mind the Emerson poll released same day, similar number surveyed, weighted, similar margin of error:
Some outfit is very wrong and we think it is most likely Selzer.
Here are links to the poll publicly released Saturday (apparently earlier to Democrats*) saying Trump is behind by 3 points in Iowa. The matter deserves attention because of the now undeserved praise still being handed out to poll designer and manager Ann Selzer*
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2024/11/02/iowa-poll-kamala-harris-leads-donald-trump-2024-presidential-race/75354033007/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2021/11/18/iowa-poll-results-questions-how-works-elections-issues-approval-politics/6291360001/
That is unless accuracy is not the purpose but desired effect
The poll has achieved what I believe may be its purpose — be so useful as to gel last minute enthusiasm, maybe not Iowa so much, but to be touted by the media and Democrats (forgive redundancy) in many states to the manipulative effect: ~~ we can do this, see even Iowa has come around to Harris. We can win this thing everywhere!! Join the trend, get on the bandwagon~~!!
No? Consider this story line from the very publication commissioning the poll in question, a breathless summation of theirs about one of their similarly structure polls back in mid September: Excitement and optimism explode for Democrats with Kamala Harris as nominee.
A false or inaccurate poll could serve other darker purposes, using the work of a “respected” pollster, however arrived at, as a cover-the-cheat poll supposedly to show a trend in support of Harris. ~~ Those found ballots were just part of a trend, don’t you know, as verified by this “respected” pollster ~~ . I put nothing past Democrats in their desperation to defeat Trump.
While the results of outlier polls can be honestly arrived at, a 95% confidence level means there is a chance a poll can be totally off from the actual sentiment, indeed 5% will be. However this one it can be argued has elements such that only gross incompetence or purposeful skulduggery could come up with such results, according to knowledgable critiques we have seen. See the specific critiques of this poll and general comments about polling of late by pollsters or analysts — like Nate Silver, Mark Mitchell, and others.
One interesting point I believe made by Mitchell is that the national polls are probably most accurate. (The recent Atlas poll is encouraging for us in that regard). (he Selzer poll is Iowa only. I think he was saying because of homogenization of error in national polls or biases that state polls do not weed out or are inordinately affected by, are the reasons. We think Selzer’s at least suffers from gross non-response bias. Affinities are not represented adequately because they won’t talk to pollsters or answer the phone period.
Some of the critiques of this poll would seem just devastating — maybe not career ending as Selzer can always say ~~ hey it was just a flier, I reported what I got, but look at my track record. I can’t help what people do with it~~. Right. But then again she looks maybe near retirement anyway.
So about the non-response bias . . . disregarding the possibility Selzer has adopted CYA pack-polling as per Nate Silver’s description of what is going on with others, and realizing that her alleged accuracy record is not uniform or unassailable, and that coming out of the leftist Des Moines Register media shop, her patron for this effort to the effect that those who pay her bills lie about Republicans all the time and especially when they think they can get away with it, putting a thumb on the scale to keep hope alive nation-wide, pretend a crack in red Iowa, shore up efforts elsewhere, encourage Harris voting herein . . . maybe the poor girl can’t find Republicans to take her calls.
We think its is a real phenomenon especially with Republicans. There is a palpable distrust of polling so no patience with the process, hang-ups, incompletes, non-responses if they do happen to pick up and find out the purpose. Fewer people answer their phones from unknown callers. We would venture that caller ID is active uniformly on land lines and certainly cell lines. The days of not knowing the ringing is from a strange number or not being suspicious this time of year that it is likely a political call, are gone. This is not the time of Princess dial phones, no screen functions at all, and inadvertent pick up and polite submission to interrogation.
So it would seem Selzer has to profile lists to call from to get enough R’s or independents to respond, or make scads of calls to get an answer and then disregard that the person who does answer just might be of a certain type, a bias of one sort or another. Perhaps Republicans she makes contact with tend toward Republicans of the ticket-splitting ilk who think of themselves as good government people on that basis and answering the phone is their duty or something . . . and surely pollsters don’t manipulate. They are still officially R’s but how R? Knowing the demographics one can examine and refine a list to find greater propensity for Trump support or not. And keep in mind that in Civic 101 we were told the polls were so wrong as regards Dewey and Truman because the bias was that more Republicans had private-line phones. The nuances as to who answers may be more subtle now but real.
