A new presidential poll has shocked the nation in the final days of the 2024 election.
Ann Selzer, a well-respected political pollster, released a poll Saturday that found Vice President Kamala Harris had suddenly surged to a three-percentage-point lead in Iowa.
The surprising outlier poll made headlines across the country, as the vice president was expected to lose the Hawkeye State, by a landslide.
Iowa has been solidly red for years. The state backed Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020 by nearly ten percentage points. And Selzer’s September poll showed Trump beating Harris by four points. Their poll from June (when President Biden was still in the race) had Trump leading by 18 points.
A 21-point swing toward Harris, in a decidedly Republican state, would certainly be cause for concern for the Trump campaign, especially since the findings highlighted a glaring vulnerability for the former president: his support among women.
According to Selzer’s poll, Harris leads Trump among women by 56 to 36 percent. This figure rises to a staggering 63 to 28 percent among women over 65.
These findings were seen as evidence of a ‘hidden’ Harris voter in the 2024 electorate who has so far gone unnoticed and is now poised to flip the race, because Iowans’ sentiments are often shared by others in the region.
Ann Selzer (above, right on MSNBC on November 3, 2024), a well-respected political pollster, released a poll on Saturday finding that Vice President Kamala Harris had suddenly surged to a three-percentage-point lead in Iowa .
The surprising outlier poll made headlines across the country, as the vice president was expected to lose the Hawkeye State, by a landslide.
If this ‘hidden Harris’ voter exists in other Midwestern states (like Michigan, Wisconsin, and even Pennsylvania), then Trump would have a big problem on his hands.
Although that is a big Yeah.
For one thing, everyone should be careful not to read too much into a single survey. While Ann Selzer has a strong track record of accuracy, no public opinion poll is infallible.
Additionally, there is important contrasting evidence to consider, including DailyMail.com’s own conclusions.
In the days before Selzer’s poll dropped, the October JL Partners/DailyMail national poll showed a Trump lead of 3 points. In September, Harris had a one-point lead.
Trump’s growing support appeared to come from voters who abandoned independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr and from undecided voters who finally made their decision. (Only one in fifty voters say they haven’t made a decision yet.)
However, the Mail spotted another trend that may suggest Selzer is right.
When we asked women how they felt about Trump, most called him “corrupt,” while Harris was seen as “strong.”
More specifically, the Mail’s survey of undecided voters in Pennsylvania in October found that one of their biggest doubts about voting for Trump was “what it would mean for women’s rights.”
With Republicans such as former congresswomen Liz Cheney and Barbara Comstock backing Harris – and with voters stubbornly loyal to former GOP candidate Nikki Haley long after she dropped out of the primary race – it’s plausible that right-leaning women could make it. to the elections. vice president.
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According to Selzer’s poll, Harris leads Trump among women by 56 to 36 percent. This figure rises to a staggering 63 to 28 percent among women over 65. (Above) Women voters in Orlando, Florida, on October 17, 2024
And in fact, since December 2023, Harris’s lead among women in the Mail poll has grown steadily, from one percentage point at the end of last year to six points in August 2024 and 14 points at the end of October.
This is a significant gender gap, but it is balanced by Trump’s +22 lead among men. And ultimately, that’s why I don’t see clear evidence that Harris can win solely because of women.
Of course, the Mail’s survey was of national voters. Could it be that Selzer’s ‘hidden Harris’ voter effect is only happening in the Midwest?
Once again, there are reasons to be skeptical.
On the same day that Selzer’s poll was released, an equally reliable operation, Emerson College Polling, released another Iowa poll.
This survey of 800 likely Iowa voters found that 53 percent supported Trump and 43 percent supported Harris, and that the former president had a majority among both genders.
“Both male and female voters in Iowa support Trump, women by a five-point margin, 51 percent to 46 percent, and men by a significant 17-point margin, 56 percent to 39 percent,” Spencer Kimball, CEO of Emerson College. Polls, he said.
Selzer’s finding and Emerson’s results cannot both be exact.
Perhaps one explanation for the discrepancy lies in how Selzer conducted his survey.
Typically, after pollsters compile their results, they “weight” the numbers to ensure their conclusions are representative of the broader electorate.
For example, if only five percent of respondents were young voters, a pollster could inflate their influence to more accurately reflect the actual percentage of young voters in the voting population.
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Selzer ‘weights’ age, gender and electoral district, but not party registration. This is not totally unusual and has given accurate results in the past. But in a state that has seen an increase in Republican registration in recent years, like Iowa, questions must be raised about the poll results.
Selzer has not published data on respondents’ party registrations, so it is impossible to know to what extent that factor may or may not have biased the sample.
Finally, there is one last reason to question the Selzer poll as strong evidence of a “hidden” female voter in Harris: and it is the fact that Iowa (which is 85 percent white) is demographically different from Pennsylvania (75 percent white ) and Michigan (74 percent). percent white).
Harris’ challenge to win across the Midwest is complicated by what has happened to nonwhite voters since 2020. An increasing percentage of them have drifted away from the liberal party.
In a focus group I conducted in Detroit last week, I was surprised by the number of black and Asian voters who told me they supported Trump. Although Harris still leads decisively among these groups, Trump has made historic gains among Black, Asian and Hispanic voters.
Taking all of these factors together, I think Donald Trump enters Tuesday with a marginal lead over Kamala Harris.
But anyone who claims know who is going to win this race is lying to you.
