News, The Des Moines Register is out with a brand
new poll conducted by JN Selzer's firm.
This, as you know, is the gold standard of polling
in Iowa and it shows Vice President Harris with a
three-point lead over Donald Trump in that state.
Harris has the support of 47% of likely voters to
Trump's 44%.
That result within the margin of error.
Joining us now pollster JN Selzer.
All right, Diane, obviously you are bringing where you we're
coming on air right now with this polling.
And I mean, we could just put it up on
the screen for folks because I didn't have this on
my bingo card.
As I like to say, Vice President Kamala Harris 47%,
Donald Trump 44%.
Take us inside your poll.
What what, what is new here?
We know that there's a majority of Iowa men in
this poll that say they prefer Trump.
A majority of women prefer Harris among likely Iowa voters.
This seems like something is happening.
It does seem like something's happening.
Now.
We've been living with the numbers day by day as
we've been gathering the data.
So we've had a little bit of time to get
over the initial shock.
You know, Iowa is a very Republican state.
There's only one person at statewide office or federal office
who is a Democrat.
So to have the presidential candidate lead by a substantive
margin is was shocking to begin with.
One of the reasons she is leading is because of
her strength with women, generally even stronger with women aged
65 and over.
Her margin is more than two to one.
And this is an is an age group that shows
up to vote or votes early in disproportionately large numbers.
So it's a little bit of the boost that Kamala
Harris has gotten this time.
You know, for me, this is very telling of a
lot of the effort and the importance of a little
thing called ground game.
And when a campaign coming in with 107 days to
make the case to communities across the country.
And we know the importance of of communities like ours,
Iowa as a bellwether, particularly as you get closer to
the election as as it is in the beginning, right.
So here we are at the end.
What's your take on that aspect of this, that the
numbers have changed so dramatically from the 18 points that
Donald Trump had to now Kamala Harris over Joe Biden,
the 18 points to now having Kamala Harris up by
three?
It's, you know, clearly there's something going on here if
our poll numbers are correct.
And it's the same method that I've used really since
I started polling.
So we have a good accuracy rate.
We're comfortable with what it is that we do, which
is to allow our data to reveal to us what's
happening with the future electorate.
So that may be the little lucky charm here is
that we're able to uncover the change that's happening on
the ground.
We certainly know anecdotally, as you drive around the metro
area, you see far more, I guess I'd say far
fewer Trump signs than we've seen in past cycles.
But you know, it's hard to put too much faith
in that.
So now we have some hard numbers.
We'll see.
I will just mention that neither of these candidates gets
to 50%.
So there still is some swing left to be determined
on election night.
It, it has been fun to watch all of the
folks who follow polls on, on on Twitter, try to
decide what your poll means for other states.
And so I wonder when you look at white voters
specifically, if you think there is something in your poll
that you can extrapolate out to Michigan, to Wisconsin, to
Pennsylvania.
Well, as your graphics are showing, there is clearly a
gender gap there.
Iowa is predominantly white.
So there's not there's not much analysis we can do
on the non white vote.
But I think what it does say is that polls
that are deciding that they know what the future electorate
looks like, maybe basing it on past electorates and in
some cases that would give Harris an advantage and in
some states that would give Kamala Harris an advantage or
some would give Donald Trump the advantage.
So we'll see how that plays out.
I just feel like these numbers represent our last poll
in September had had Trump leading by just a four
point margin when Joe Biden back in June had lost
by an 18 point margin.
So we're certainly seeing an upward almost linear shift in
the Democratic strength in Iowa.
You know, Diane, I just want to note that the
only Democrat elected statewide in Iowa, Rob Sand, when your
poll came out, he he texts me and Rob has
been saying for a very long time, he's the state
auditor that there have been many close losses in Iowa.
And Iowa is in fact a place that's in play
for for Democrats.
And this poll, to me, indicates perhaps Rob Sanders, right,
You know, by putting in the work infrastructure, as Chairman
Steele just noted, have Democrats made Iowa more competitive because
of their presence there?
And also the issue of reproductive rights, because that was
something that bubbled up on the ground throughout the state,
namely led by the governor herself.
Right.
Well, I would mention that Rob Sand is that one
Democrat elected statewide.
So he's got his finger on the pulse of what's
happening in the Democratic Party as we were trying to
determine, you know, this is a very short poll because
there's no time left to write lengthy stories with lots
of data in them.
So we're we don't have as much data as we
might like about why this is happening.
But our consensus from the reporters who who work this
beat is that the six month abortion ban went into
effect, in fact, just this past summer.
And so I think as Iowans are starting to see
the consequences of that, I think it has gotten people
interested in voting.
The thing we noticed in our September poll that that
you know, shrunk Trump's lead by 14 percentage points.
He lost no actual ground.
He had as many respondents supporting him in September as
he had in June.
But the the size of the likely voter pool had
increased priest and most of that 85 respondents went to
Kamala Harris.
So so Jan let's talk about sort of the why
because I that's the world I like to live in
as a former party official is OK.
Why are voters doing what they're what they're doing organization.
As we just talked about you and Simone you know
that that sort of planning that is all good and
smart.
It's all critically important.
But the why narrative tells us a lot of of
the inside thoughts of the voters.
And there there are two aspects of the messaging here
that feeds into the why for the Trump people that
the narrative that they tried to get up and and
out in front of voters was are you better off
right than you were four years ago?
For the Harris campaign, it was it was a different
kind of approach.
It was OK.
I want you to size the two of us up
and you tell me which one you think is going
to be better suited to take care of the nation's
interests over their own.
And, and I, I wanted to, I'm curious as to
as you look at, I'm sure you're going to peel
back on these numbers a little bit more.
But do you get a sense of of the why
in that space that the voters looked at the messaging
here as a way to sort of sort of the
carrot that led them to where we are right now?
Well, I think that question about are you better off
that people tend to think, well, that's that's your pocketbook.
There are other ways that people are not better off.
And again, I go back to the Dobbs decision and
the six week abortion ban, which put women of a
certain of childbearing age into some danger zone.
If you if you might, some might feel it's that
way.
The thing I need to point out, and it was
pointed out to me by one of the registered reporters,
is that this change, I think, is largely organic.
That is, the presidential campaigns haven't visited.
They're not putting money into this state.
So that it's not that this is something that has
been created by the campaigns themselves.
I I think was largely written off, which is why
this poll is such a surprise.
So I think there's something more organic that people are
deciding for themselves.
This is the time I'm going to get off the
bench.
I'm going to show up.
And and that it appears from my data that that
is happening.
More on the people deciding to vote for Kamala Harris,
the Democratic candidate.
As a former pre Med student at Johns Hopkins University,
I appreciate organic chemistry.
Jay Ann Seltzer, thank you so much for being with
us tonight.