https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/from-the-editor/2024/11/17/editors-update-what-a-review-of-the-pre-election-iowa-poll-has-found/76300644007/
What the review found
Here’s a brief summary of the theories tested and the findings.
Were the demographics skewed? Selzer notes that this poll and other recent Iowa Polls have shown a higher response in the 1st Congressional District, in southeast Iowa, which leans more Democratic than the others. But the poll weights by congressional district, which would address that. Another common question she’s fielded: Did the poll include too many city dwellers, who tend to vote Democratic, and too few rural dwellers, who tend to vote Republican? In fact, the poll’s sample included 31% of likely voters who were city dwellers, a smaller percentage than in five comparable polls that identified likely 2024 voters, stretching back to 2021.
Did the poll fail to detect the shift found nationally among men of color toward Trump? The Iowa Poll’s sample of Latino men (20) did go to Trump by a 4-1 margin. But the numbers are so small that they had little effect on the overall poll results.
By ending interviews on Thursday, did the poll fail to capture late-deciders? Because exit polling was not conducted in Iowa, this is unknowable. Before publication, Selzer had flagged that Thursday was Trump’s best night. Per her usual practice, she calculated two-day rolling averages, but those looked flat.
Was the poll’s weighting flawed? The Iowa Poll’s respondent base is built to give all Iowa adults an equal probability of being contacted by an interviewer. Then Census data is used to adjust demographic variances to ensure an appropriate cross-section of all Iowa adults. As Selzer explains in more detail, the weighting in this poll was minimal and yielded a final sample of likely voters that matched the percentage of the most recent poll.
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