J. Ann Selzer, who wrongly predicted Iowa would turn blue and vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s election, is ending her polling career to take on new opportunities.
“Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course,” Selzer wrote Sunday in a guest column for the Des Moines Register. “It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite.”
In the column, she noted that she had already planned to part ways with the Register prior to the election polling results.
At the beginning of November, Selzer, who founded her own polling firm, Selzer and Company, in 1996, predicted that Harris would earn 47% of the vote in Iowa to 44% for Donald Trump. Trump ended up earning 56% of the vote in Iowa, while Harris earned 42%. Selzer’s wrong prediction came as a shock to many, considering her track record is nearly spotless; as of September this year, FiveThirtyEight, a website that analyzes polls, had Selzer and Company at a 2.8 rating out of 3.
Selzer first began working the Register’s poll in 1987 when she was a staffer; she started conducting it through her polling firm in 1997. Following the election, Selzer told the Register that she would review her data to learn how she got the prediction wrong.
“Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist,” she wrote in her column. “So, I’m humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings.”
Selzer also said that her integrity “means a lot” to her.
“To those who have questioned it, there are likely no words to dissuade,” she wrote. “For those who know me best, I appreciate the supportive notes and calls reminding me that what drew me to them as friends, colleagues and clients was commitment to truth and accuracy — both in my professional and my personal relationships.”
