IA-Selzer: Trump +7

[It’s so Joever]

Is it too early to say “I told you so?”

[Bootes Void]

It has been about 2 hours since the poll dropped and I intentionally muted "iowa" on twitter and didn't peek into this thread too often so I could gather some thoughts about this.

Ultimately, I think everyone here has been overhyping this poll.

In their last poll, it was a tie at 47% to 47%, in this poll, Trump leads 48% to 41%. Has Biden really lost 6% of his support in just a month? Well, no, of course not.

This poll differs from the last poll in which they included an option for people who've already voted: "don't want to tell." And that option is taking.. 5%! It's also presumably taking up a significant chunk of the people who say they've already voted, which is a group likely to benefit Biden.

It's not amazing news for the Democrats, but the jank crosstabs and the inclusion of the "I don't want to tell you who I voted for option" might make this poll look deceptively good to Trump.

that question is just straight up bizzare, wtf. No other pollster shows this drop

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It has been about 2 hours since the poll dropped and I intentionally muted "iowa" on twitter and didn't peek into this thread too often so I could gather some thoughts about this.

Ultimately, I think everyone here has been overhyping this poll.

In their last poll, it was a tie at 47% to 47%, in this poll, Trump leads 48% to 41%. Has Biden really lost 6% of his support in just a month? Well, no, of course not.

This poll differs from the last poll in which they included an option for people who've already voted: "don't want to tell." And that option is taking.. 5%! It's also presumably taking up a significant chunk of the people who say they've already voted, which is a group likely to benefit Biden.

It's not amazing news for the Democrats, but the jank crosstabs and the inclusion of the "I don't want to tell you who I voted for option" might make this poll look deceptively good to Trump.

that question is just straight up bizzare, wtf. No other pollster shows this drop

Plenty have a "refused to answer/pick" option which is analogous.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Q had a 6% shift to Trump
Selzer has a 7% shift to Trump.

Q shifted it to a tie because they had Biden up by 5%. Selzer had it tied previously.

This was noted before, but it got lost in the madness of this thread.

[Senator Incitatus]

Q had a 6% shift to Trump
Selzer has a 7% shift to Trump.

Q shifted it to a tie because they had Biden up by 5%. Selzer had it tied previously.

This was noted before, but it got lost in the madness of this thread.

I'll say this: the President is a tremendous showman. You almost have to think, against all reason, that he prefers the improbable comeback.

[Dr. Arch]

I just checked and WTF is this.

One GA poll with Biden at +5 or +7... "Outlier, two-page thread"

One Iowa poll with Trump at +7... *17 PAGES!*

People. Get...A...Grip.

[forza nocta]

3 Reasons why this poll is not predictive of anything ala 2016

1. In 2016, the highest Selzer had Clinton was at 39%. In their last poll, Selzer had Biden at 47%. Clearly something is off in this poll to have such a dramatic shift, so the fact that they had him at 47% in their last poll is telling.

2. When their final Iowa poll dropped in 2016, things were tightening in a lot of polls, from the nat. ones to the state polls. This isn't happening this year.

3. Nearly every Iowa poll had Hillary in the low 40s and high 30s in 2016. This year, all of the higher quality polls in Iowa have had Biden at between 46-50, and in some he's leading and at 50%. Hillary wishes she could have had #s like that.

All respect to Ann Selzer, but this poll ain't it.

[Rand]

I just cut up a fresh pineapple if anybody wants some.

[Alben Barkley]

I’d just like to remind everyone freaking out of one more thing:

Even IF we were to assume that Iowa is in fact gone for Dems, that it will continue to trend if not swing right, and even IF we were to assume that this is indicative of polling being off in the more critical midwest/rust belt states again and IF we assume that means they are very close again... That does not mean Trump will end up on the winning side of them all again. Biden only needs a swing of LESS THAN A POINT in three states from 2016 to win. Iowa is not among them. ALL indications are he is going to get that and then some. And that’s without even getting into his leads and competitiveness in sun belt states that Hillary never had, states which have effectively no correlation to midwest/rust belt states. It would be real funny if the polls do indeed turn out to have overestimated Biden’s strength with rural Northern whites, only to have ALSO underestimated his strength with Hispanics in Texas or something so he easily wins anyway. That would still be a possibility and we won’t know until it happens or doesn’t. But overall, the VAST majority of polls are still looking real good for Biden right now.

[Alben Barkley]

Q had a 6% shift to Trump
Selzer has a 7% shift to Trump.

Q shifted it to a tie because they had Biden up by 5%. Selzer had it tied previously.

This was noted before, but it got lost in the madness of this thread.

Probably the truth lies somewhere in between, meaning the state is probably “really” toss-up to Tilt R. Hardly surprising.

[Bootes Void]

[ibagli]

So even in Trump's best poll in recent memory, it still shows a swing away from him?

[Ljube]

I’d just like to remind everyone freaking out of one more thing:

Even IF we were to assume that Iowa is in fact gone for Dems, that it will continue to trend if not swing right, and even IF we were to assume that this is indicative of polling being off in the more critical midwest/rust belt states again and IF we assume that means they are very close again... That does not mean Trump will end up on the winning side of them all again. Biden only needs a swing of LESS THAN A POINT in three states from 2016 to win. Iowa is not among them. ALL indications are he is going to get that and then some. And that’s without even getting into his leads and competitiveness in sun belt states that Hillary never had, states which have effectively no correlation to midwest/rust belt states. It would be real funny if the polls do indeed turn out to have overestimated Biden’s strength with rural Northern whites, only to have ALSO underestimated his strength with Hispanics in Texas or something so he easily wins anyway. That would still be a possibility and we won’t know until it happens or doesn’t. But overall, the VAST majority of polls are still looking real good for Biden right now.

This is true. Even though the race in WI, PA, MI and MN is probably close, Biden may win all of them. The same was true in 2016.

[swf541]

So even in Trump's best poll in recent memory, it still shows a swing away from him?

Yes and a large enough one where he would still lose the election

[ON Progressive]

I’d just like to remind everyone freaking out of one more thing:

Even IF we were to assume that Iowa is in fact gone for Dems, that it will continue to trend if not swing right, and even IF we were to assume that this is indicative of polling being off in the more critical midwest/rust belt states again and IF we assume that means they are very close again... That does not mean Trump will end up on the winning side of them all again. Biden only needs a swing of LESS THAN A POINT in three states from 2016 to win. Iowa is not among them. ALL indications are he is going to get that and then some. And that’s without even getting into his leads and competitiveness in sun belt states that Hillary never had, states which have effectively no correlation to midwest/rust belt states. It would be real funny if the polls do indeed turn out to have overestimated Biden’s strength with rural Northern whites, only to have ALSO underestimated his strength with Hispanics in Texas or something so he easily wins anyway. That would still be a possibility and we won’t know until it happens or doesn’t. But overall, the VAST majority of polls are still looking real good for Biden right now.

And also IA's correlation to the MIWIPA trio is overrated as hell.

Iowa voted 9+ points to the right of all three of those states in 2016, and also had a much weaker showing for Democrats in 2018 than the MIWIPA trio in which the only close statewide race was the WI Governor race which the Democrats won.

[Xing]

This poll doesn’t mean Biden is going to lose, but if this is accurate (read: if), Biden probably isn’t winning MI/PA/WI in a landslide, and his win might be more modest than some think.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I just checked and WTF is this.

One GA poll with Biden at +5 or +7... "Outlier, two-page thread"

One Iowa poll with Trump at +7... *17 PAGES!*

People. Get...A...Grip.

The reason this poll is getting so much attention is not because of the poll itself or its direct results.

The reason it is getting a lot of attention is because it is the only poll from a credible pollster we have seen in a long time that suggests Trump has any real path to winning at all. There is a big difference between "basically no chance of winning" and "small but real" chance of winning.

Another thing that some people noted is that Selzer didn't weight for education, and that may play a part in this result. Indeed, that is quite plausible. She may have gotten a less educated sample.

One of Selzer's methodological calling cards has long been that she deliberately tries not to assume too much about the electorate and especially not to limit who she includes in a poll or counts as a "likely voter" too much. That can have its pluses and its minuses.

But one of its pluses is that it is basically means her poll is listening "close to the ground." It lets her pick up on late breaking trends that other polls might miss, at the cost of possibly being over-sensitive.

The one thing that we have all known for a long time that Trump needs to have any realistic chance of winning is big enthusiasm and big election day turnout from WWC voters.

So, suppose that this poll is  as Trumpy as it is because it has "too many" non-college white voters in the sample. What might that mean? Well, it might mean that non-college white voters in Iowa are pretty enthusiastic about voting and thus were more likely to respond to the poll.

That could be a harbinger of strong WWC turnout on election day. It isn't necessarily, but it could be. And if there were a bunch of late-breaking enthusiasm among non-college white voters and if there were about to be a big surge of WWC election day turnout, one of the first places we would expect to see hints of that would be in a poll like the Selzer poll that deliberately tries not to limit its likely voter pool too much or make too many assumptions about it. And if there were a surge of WWC election day voting, it probably would not occur just in Iowa but also would occur to some degree in other states. It may be easier to detect in Iowa since Iowa is more rural, whiter, and doesn't have large metro areas, however.

[NOVA Green]

So...although this is not a song about Iowa, we have to consider the "Gold Standard" and naturally my mind turns to the Labor Movement Songs of the past.

Taft-Hartley and the Industrial Labor Movement in the Midwest are still floating around.

Bill Clinton screwed the Labor Movement in the Industrial Midwest, while meanwhile Gephardt was actually fighting for the Workers.

We have seen for decades since 1948 how Democratic Presidential Administrations supported massive repression against the Union Movement, and some random younger folx on Atlas don't get why many of us voted Perot in '92?

Taft-Hartley Song:

Kilroy Was Here:

[Calthrina950]

This poll doesn’t mean Biden is going to lose, but if this is accurate (read: if), Biden probably isn’t winning MI/PA/WI in a landslide, and his win might be more modest than some think.

Perhaps this might be a reminder that the hopes of many on here (including myself) for a Biden double-digit win were always overblown. As I've said before, I don't understand why people are getting so concerned about this one poll, but this does compel me to look back to 2018, which was a similar environment for Democrats compared to what we're seeing now, with the pandemic of course being another factor. That might give us an indication of how Biden's victory unfolds.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

And also IA's correlation to the MIWIPA trio is overrated as hell.

Iowa voted 9+ points to the right of all three of those states in 2016, and also had a much weaker showing for Democrats in 2018 than the MIWIPA trio in which the only close statewide race was the WI Governor race which the Democrats won.

True, the correlation to those states as a whole is fairly weak.

However, the correlation to rural parts of those states is a lot stronger.

The reason why the correlation is weak is because those other states have large metros with lots of educated whites and/or minorities which Iowa doesn't have such as Madison, Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.

This poll is not an indicator that Trump will necessarily win or do particularly well in PA, MI, or even WI. But it is an indicator that he could do fairly well in rural counties within those states; possibly either they don't swing back to Biden, or at least not by as much as one would expect based purely off of other datapoints. And that is also a longer term indicator that in future elections Republicans may do well in those rural white areas also, and eventually make additional gains above what Trump already got.

[Alben Barkley]

So even in Trump's best poll in recent memory, it still shows a swing away from him?

Yes and a large enough one where he would still lose the election

It is quite possibly his single best quality poll of the entire cycle. (ie. Not Trafalgar et al.)

And it’s in a must win state for him worth few EVs. With a lot of undecideds and only a 1 point improvement in his own vote share from last time.

I really don’t get the gloating from Trumpers and panic from doomers. If the national polls were tightening like they did in 2016, if Biden was losing his grip on Michigan and such with unstable/narrow leads and many undecideds like 2016, then I would get it. But none of that is happening. This is pretty much the ONLY indication so far that there is anything about this election remotely comparable to 2016 that’s favorable for Trump. And it’s from a poll that might have been the “gold standard” at one point, but has become increasingly less reliable in recent years. It was significantly off in both 2018 and this year’s primaries. It doesn’t weight for education, for god’s sake. I think it’s far more likely that this poll will lose its “gold standard” status for good after this election than that we’ll see a 2016 repeat based on all the other evidence. Or maybe this will just be dismissed as the outlier it most likely is.

[Hammy]

It doesn’t weight for education, for god’s sake.

Why on earth are people giving this poll ANY consideration then, considering the big talking point is that was what caused 2016's error.

[redjohn]

This poll doesn’t mean Biden is going to lose, but if this is accurate (read: if), Biden probably isn’t winning MI/PA/WI in a landslide, and his win might be more modest than some think.

I mean, campaigns have been saying all along that it's a tighter race than publicly projected. The only people who ever thought Biden was winning MI/PA/WI easily were on Twitter; I promise you no voters on the ground or organizers on the ground have ever believed this. This one poll proves nothing except that Biden is probably still leading by 8/9 points nationally and we have a slight outlier from IA showing Trump+7 when it's probably Trump+3 or something.

[KaiserDave]

This thread is Exhibit A why I'm not going to be looking at Atlas on E-Day

[Frodo]

Election Day can't come soon enough....