YokelRidesAgain said:
The Selzer poll is stunning. Ann Selzer has a longstanding reputation as a highly skilled pollster in the Iowa market, AND for releasing results even if they contradict conventional wisdom/other polls.
Note that this certainly doesn't mean that Harris is actually ahead in Iowa. Trump leading in the state would be well within the mathematical margin of error. But if Iowa is even kind of competitive, Trump is cooked.
Shouldn't make too much of any single data point (even this one), but the interpretations are:
1) Trump is cooked.
2) Selzer has totally lost her mojo and/or become a partisan shill
3) This poll is a fluke outlier (things that have a 1% chance of happening happen all the time)
my thoughts:
1. this is easily the most eye-popping poll of the election for multiple reasons, and certainly an outlier
2. trump is not losing IA
3. the margin is eye-popping, but 47-44 is much different than, say, 51-48. expect that remaining 9% will break heavily for trump.
4. this is a gutsy poll result to release. recent speculation in lib pundit land has been that pollsters are herding to the same thin margins partly in fear of releasing results that are too friendly to dems after errors in 2016 and 2020. if so, it would suggest a correction in polling in toward trump, perhaps even an overcorrection. that such a well respected pollster (known for resisting herding) put out a result like this is being treated in lib-land as evidence of this correction. this matters because trump supporters' belief that it's self-evident trump will outperform polls again has been a load-bearing pillar of pro-trump confidence throughout the campaign.