Ann Selzer

Jane Ann Selzer (born 1956) is an American political pollster and the president of the Des Moines, Iowa-based polling firm Selzer & Company, which she founded in 1996. She was described as "the best pollster in politics" by Clare Malone of ''FiveThirtyEight'', which also gave Selzer & Company a rare A+ grade for accuracy.

Her polls of Iowa voters had a reputation for being highly accurate, based on their performance in elections from 2008 through 2020. However, Selzer's polls incorrectly predicted Democratic victories in Iowa for the presidential elections of 2004 and 2024, with the latter underestimating Republican Donald Trump by sixteen points. She announced her retirement from the election polling part of her practice shortly after the 2024 election, announcing that she will focus on future endeavors in other parts of her business.

Early life

Selzer was born in Rochester, Minnesota, in 1956, the middle child in a family of five. She was raised in Topeka, Kansas. Selzer attended the University of Kansas, initially as a pre-med student, but eventually lost interest in medicine. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Dramatics Arts in 1978. She then earned a Ph.D. in Communication Theory and Research from the University of Iowa in 1984.

Career

After graduation, Selzer worked for ''The Des Moines Register''. She established her own polling firm, Selzer & Company, in 1996. She worked as the pollster for the ''Register'' for many years, and oversaw nearly all of the ''Register''s Iowa Polls from 1987 to 2024, according to ''FiveThirtyEight''. She has also done polling work for numerous other news organizations, including the ''Detroit Free Press'' and the ''Indianapolis Star''. Recently, Selzer has partnered with Grinnell College as a part of the Grinnell College National Poll program.

Polling methodology

Selzer's polls utilize random sampling through random digit dialing in a dual-frame design with both landlines and cell phones. The sampling frame for her political polls of likely caucusgoers typically consist of lists of registered voters. Likely voters for relevant elections being polled are determined through self-reported responses on intention to vote or participate in caucuses. Selzer states that she uses minimal weighting in her polling, adjusting for demographic variables such as age, race, and sex with U.S. census data and declining to adjust for variables like recalled voting history.

Results

In the 2004 presidential election, Selzer's polling inaccurately predicted that John Kerry would win Iowa against George W. Bush. Selzer was the only pollster to correctly predict Barack Obama's comfortable victory in the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucuses, and her poll of the 2014 United States Senate election in Iowa also mirrored the actual result exceptionally closely.

Selzer & Co. conducted their final 2016 presidential poll in Iowa in early November, showing Donald Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton by seven percentage points. Most other polls at the time showed a much closer race. Trump won Iowa by 9.4 percentage points. Selzer's final Iowa poll ahead of the 2020 presidential election showed Trump ahead of Joe Biden by seven percentage points, and Republican Senator Joni Ernst ahead of Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield by four percentage points. This was the only poll conducted in fall 2020 to show Trump ahead by more than two points, while Ernst's race was considered a toss-up. Trump won Iowa by 8.2 percentage points, while Ernst was re-elected by 6.6 points. In a post-election interview with ''Bloomberg'', Selzer suggested that her polls' consistently high performance may be related to making fewer assumptions about the electorate, saying "I assumed nothing. My data told me."

2024 presidential election

Prior to the 2024 United States presidential election, Selzer & Co. released their final Iowa poll that had Kamala Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% in the state, markedly different from other polls that showed Trump with a significant lead. The poll was leaked ahead of its embargo, with Governor J. B. Pritzker of Illinois publicly discussing its results less than an hour before its scheduled release. Trump criticized the accuracy of the poll. Selzer responded by saying the poll used the same methodology as in 2016 and 2020, and that, "It would not be in my best interest, or that of my clients—The ''Des Moines Register'' and Mediacom—to conjure fake numbers."

Contrary to the poll, Trump won Iowa by a 13-point margin; the error of roughly 16 percentage points was by far the largest of any of Selzer's polls. She pledged to review the data to see if she could explain the significant polling error. ''FiveThirtyEight'' hypothesized that Selzer's methodology, which declines to weight for educational attainment and partisan identification, may have led to the divergent result. On November 17, 2024, Selzer announced her retirement from electoral polling, saying she had planned to do so before the 2024 election. Trump publicly accused her of "possible election fraud" and called for "an investigation" of her. On December 16, Trump said he would sue Selzer and the ''Des Moines Register'', saying their poll "was fraud, and it was election interference." Trump filed the threatened lawsuit against Selzer on December 16, 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. On January 7, 2025, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) announced that it would defend Selzer in the lawsuit, calling the lawsuit "the very definition of a 'SLAPP' suit — a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation." On February 21, FIRE asked the Court to dismiss the suit, writing "“allegations about polls and news stories he plaintiffsdislike have nothing to do with fraud” and that Selzer's polling was protected under the First Amendment.

After Iowa passed Anti-SLAPP legislation for federal cases in May 2025, Trump asked the District Court to transfer the case to an Iowa state court in June but was refused. On June 30, Trump dropped the federal lawsuit and immediately refiled it in a state court.

On January 8, 2025, the Center for American Rights, filed a class action lawsuit in Polk County District Court on behalf of West Des Moines resident Dennis Donnelly and other ''Des Moines Register'' subscribers. The lawsuit alleges that Selzer and the paper defrauded the readers under Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act by knowingly publishing inaccurate poll results.  

Final pre-election Selzer & Company polls

Notes

References

Further reading

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External links

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Who Is Ann Selzer? Pollster's Record as Iowa Poll Shows Kamala Harris Ahead

{{DEFAULTSORT:Selzer, Ann
1956 births
20th-century American women scientists
21st-century American women scientists
American political women
American women statisticians
Living people
People from Des Moines, Iowa
People from Topeka, Kansas
Pollsters
University of Iowa alumni
University of Kansas alumni
People from Rochester, Minnesota
Controversies of the 2024 United States presidential election
People associated with the 2024 United States presidential election
Women in Iowa politics
American women founders
American founders