IA-Selzer: Trump +7

[wbrocks67]

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.

Also... I don't care who is in the lead. 11% undecided/other is absolutely ridiculous with 3 days to go. For any pollster.

Also, OMG at the R+15 result in IA-01. What in the actual hell is this poll

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

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.

Also... I don't care who is in the lead. 11% undecided/other is absolutely ridiculous with 3 days to go. For any pollster.

Also, OMG at the R+15 result in IA-01. What in the actual hell is this poll

That undecided figure includes people who've already voted and don't recall how they voted.

[wbrocks67]

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.

Also... I don't care who is in the lead. 11% undecided/other is absolutely ridiculous with 3 days to go. For any pollster.

Also, OMG at the R+15 result in IA-01. What in the actual hell is this poll

That undecided figure includes people who've already voted and don't recall how they voted.

Well right, the fact that their "already voted" sample is like 55-32 with 13% not saying or recalling who they *already voted for* makes this entire sample junk.

[YE]

This poll is a bad indicator for Biden, but there are so many good indicators for Biden that he's very likely to win, and win comfortably, anyway. I was hoping that this would disprove my suspicions that IA and OH polls are underestimating Trump by a few points and Biden will fall short there, but unfortunately a gold-standard poll with evidence for that hasn't emerged. However, IA isn't a tipping-point state, Biden would be well ahead in the EC and PV if he is winning here (and it's possible that IA trends to the right so that Biden wins an EC and PV landslide but still loses it).

This poll is a major outlier. C'mon man.

They were saying the same thing in 2016!!

Why have you turned into a mega doomer all of a sudden?

I don’t think he’s being fully serious here given his record.

[H. Ross Peron]

Very distressing. Seeing what Republicans are doing in Texas and beyond to suppress the vote, I don't understand how anyone can vote for them. This is not going to end very well.

Because nobody in their right mind wants Biden lockdowns, taxes and recession.

Biden's economic plan would create more jobs than Trump's.

That's simply not true. The recession is already happening. The stock market crash is a reaction to a probable Biden win. If he actually wins, the stock market is going to reach the levels from the beginning of the COVID crisis, unless a big stimulus package is passed.

I mean, the economy is in deep trouble right now and the people want to elect someone who they think will be worse at handling the economy than his opponent. This is completely illogical to me.

Trump is an incompetent fool who screwed up the Covid response which is causing our current economic problems. If people felt safer they would go out more to restaurants, movies etc. He will be the downfall of America. Perhaps that is why you support him.

You don't know what you are talking about. Just look at what's going on in Europe. They supposedly handled the COVID response in the right way and they are in such a deep trouble now that they were forced to impose new lockdowns.

No, Europe didn't handle it the right way. Certain countries, like Germany, did. South Korea or Singapore are good examples as well. We couldn't even get the basics right, such as our leader telling everyone to put on a mask!

South Korea and Singapore are not applicable to the western democracies.
The people in the western democracies are free and they don't like being told what to do.

South Korea is a democracy, dude.

[Hammy]

That undecided figure includes people who've already voted and don't recall how they voted.

That makes this poll's quality infinitely worse.

The people in the western democracies are free and they don't like being told what to do.

So basically you're saying all laws should be repealed? Because otherwise this is one of the most absurd things on said on here, which is something given the Seltzer meltdown.

[Alben Barkley]

I’m not really getting the whole “this is Trump’s best poll of the whole cycle” claim.

Trump has had several better polls in Florida than this one.  In particular, there was a WaPo poll in late September showing Trump +4 among LVs.  There have been multiple high quality polls showing the race tied or +1 either way in that state.

This poll is a much smaller and less pivotal state, and still shows a swing toward Biden.  So I don’t understand what the big deal is.

Biggest reason I say it might be is that it’s coming so late, and echoes a similar poll from Selzer in 2016. Florida has been pretty all over the place this whole time too, but Iowa was looking pretty consistent across the board recently in showing a tight race that tilted Biden if anything until now.

Well now WaPo has Trump +2 just as late.  That poll seems much better for Trump than this one.

That’s a 2 point tightening from their previous FL poll. So I wouldn’t say so. This is an expansion of Trump’s lead from his previous poll here even with the same pollster, not a narrowing.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I leave you all alone for an afternoon and you have 18 pages for one poll? Smh

[Bootes Void]

I leave you all alone for an afternoon and you have 18 pages for one poll? Smh

You should have seen the meltdown at the time, it was insane

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

I leave you all alone for an afternoon and you have 18 pages for one poll? Smh

You should have seen the meltdown at the time, it was insane

I scrolled through the first page and decided that I didn’t really need to read 17 more. Birdwatching was more fun.

[Hammy]

I leave you all alone for an afternoon and you have 18 pages for one poll? Smh

Atlas reacted as if the final vote tally came in and Trump won the national PV.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Hunter Biden is still being investigated as we spolesk, Don Jr doesn't have clean hands but he went thru an FBI investigation and a complete Congressional investigation, which Hunter Bidej didn't go thru a complete investigation

[H. Ross Peron]

This poll strengthens my confidence in the prediction that Ohio will vote for Biden but not not Iowa. I think Biden will probably lose the state by 3 to 5 points. I just hope there's just enough crossover ballots to bring Greenfield over the line.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Very distressing. Seeing what Republicans are doing in Texas and beyond to suppress the vote, I don't understand how anyone can vote for them. This is not going to end very well.

Because nobody in their right mind wants Biden lockdowns, taxes and recession.

Biden's economic plan would create more jobs than Trump's.

That's simply not true. The recession is already happening. The stock market crash is a reaction to a probable Biden win. If he actually wins, the stock market is going to reach the levels from the beginning of the COVID crisis, unless a big stimulus package is passed.

I mean, the economy is in deep trouble right now and the people want to elect someone who they think will be worse at handling the economy than his opponent. This is completely illogical to me.

Trump is an incompetent fool who screwed up the Covid response which is causing our current economic problems. If people felt safer they would go out more to restaurants, movies etc. He will be the downfall of America. Perhaps that is why you support him.

You don't know what you are talking about. Just look at what's going on in Europe. They supposedly handled the COVID response in the right way and they are in such a deep trouble now that they were forced to impose new lockdowns.

No, Europe didn't handle it the right way. Certain countries, like Germany, did. South Korea or Singapore are good examples as well. We couldn't even get the basics right, such as our leader telling everyone to put on a mask!

South Korea and Singapore are not applicable to the western democracies.
The people in the western democracies are free and they don't like being told what to do.

South Korea is a democracy, dude.

I skipped to the last page and see this discussion, what the hell is this thread??

[MT Treasurer]

I swear, IA, MT, and FL are always among the states that bring out the worst in this forum. No way I’m reading 18 pages (holy fYck) of this, so I’ll just leave this here:

- Huge surprise: Geography, trends, and demographics are in fact more predictive of election results/swings than meaningless buzzwords (‘elasticity’, ‘polarization’). Nate Silver thinks that the state where Republicans couldn’t even win competitive Senate races in two Republican years (NH 2014, NH 2016) is the most ‘elastic’ state in the nation, so maybe, just maybe, his ‘elasticity rankings’ are utter nonsense.

- Biden could (and will) easily win the presidency even if he loses IA by 7 (or a little less than that, which I feel is more likely).

- Biden will still win MN, WI, MI, PA comfortably, but probably by a smaller margin than many polls have shown and people here are expecting. I never bought any of these states voting to the left of the ‘nation as a whole’, but again, there is no comparable urban/suburban base in IA that could erase a 10-point Trump win in that state the same way metropolitan areas/suburban swings/record D turnout/2016 third-party voters breaking for Biden in WI/MI/PA could erase a 1-point R lead in those three states. The age/generational gap is also more pronounced in IA than in almost any other swing state, IIRC, so yeah, I think IA is the closest thing we have to a Democratic equivalent of GA in terms of long-term prospects for the once-dominant party.

- IA was always going to be the hardest ‘battleground’ state for Democrats, and the take that it was more winnable for Democrats than GA, TX, and even FL.... was honestly among the most irrational ones I’ve ever seen on this forum, and that says a lot.

- Even if Ernst wins the Senate race (it’s one poll that was quite off in 2018, but I don’t think calling this race Tilt or even Lean R is absurd), Democrats can easily win the Senate with some combination of GA-R/GA-S/AZ/CO/NC/ME/KS/MT/TX/SC/AK, all of which (with the possible exception of ME) have far more favorable trends for Democrats than IA.

In other words... much ado about nothing from people who refuse to let go of the notion that IA is some completely unpredictable state that doesn’t lean strongly Republican and continues to trend away from Democrats.

[NOVA Green]

Some random POS just reported a post I made within the past Hour.

The overwhelming majority of my posts today were on this very thread, and all of most posts today have been completely in line with the ToS agreements.

Atlas should have a mechanism where posters who frivolously report posters get on a "watch" /"ban" list for frivolous reporting, since in the vast majority of these cases we have new posters who simply disagree with a posters personal opinions and chose to "report" the poster, instead of logically discussing their agreements / disagreements with the opinions expressed.

I strongly suspect the individual originated from this very thread, but all that being said, I still stand by Sioux City being a potential "Bellwether" of Iowa in 2020.

[jamestroll]

I swear, IA, MT, and FL are always among the three states that bring out the worst in this forum. No way I’m reading 18 pages (holy fYck) of this, so I’ll just leave this here:

- Huge surprise: Geography, trends, and demographics are in fact more predictive of election results/swings than meaningless buzzwords (‘elasticity’, ‘polarization’). Nate Silver thinks that the state where Republicans couldn’t even win competitive Senate races in two Republican years (NH 2014, NH 2016) is the most ‘elastic’ state in the nation, so maybe, just maybe, his ‘elasticity rankings’ are utter nonsense.

- Biden could (and will) easily win the presidency even if he loses IA by 7 (or a little less than that, which I feel is more likely).

- Biden will still win MN, WI, MI, PA comfortably, but probably by a smaller margin than many polls have shown and people here are expecting. I never bought any of these states voting to the left of the ‘nation as a whole’, but again, there is no comparable urban/suburban base in IA that could erase a 10-point Trump win in that state the same way metropolitan areas/suburban swings/record D turnout/2016 third-party voters breaking for Biden in WI/MI/PA could erase a 1-point R lead in those three states. The age/generational gap is also more pronounced in IA than in almost any other swing state, IIRC, so yeah, I think IA is the closest thing we have to a Democratic equivalent of GA in terms of long-term prospects for the once-dominant party.

- IA was always going to be the hardest ‘battleground’ state for Democrats, and the take that it was more winnable for Democrats than GA, TX, and even FL.... was honestly among the most irrational ones I’ve ever seen on this forum, and that says a lot.

- Even if Ernst wins the Senate race (it’s one poll that was quite off in 2018, but I don’t think calling this race Tilt or even Lean R is absurd), Democrats can easily win the Senate with some combination of GA-R/GA-S/AZ/CO/NC/ME/KS/MT/TX/SC/AK, all of which (with the possible exception of ME) have far more favorable trends for Democrats than IA.

In other words... much ado about nothing from people who refuse to let go of the notion that IA is some completely unpredictable state that doesn’t lean strongly Republican and continues to trend away from Democrats.

Yes, I basically agree with all this. Biden is going to carry Michigan and Minnesota comfortably but a tad to the right of the country because of their metro areas. Which simple do not exist in a large number in Iowa.

[Tender Branson]

Interesting.

Maybe those IA students were on to something ...

[Umengus]

Democrats are weirdos. Why do you all act like girls when one thing doesn't go your way? Grow up. We have had polls with Biden leading in Iowa in the last week. and Republicans, just enjoy your final few months with your dear leader in office. You will be locked out until 2032 at least.

so much for feminism

[Landslide Lyndon]

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.

The thing is though that this poll doesn't show a groundswell of WWC support for Trump. He is pretty much at the same spot where he was a month ago. What it shows is that for no apparent reason Biden lost 1/8th of his voters (when the opposite happened everywhere else in the country).

[Umengus]

This poll is... just so bad. So Selzer found a steady race for the entire summer and early fall, and then it surges from a tied race in that time period (multiple times), to Biden suddenly .... crashing and losing 6/7% of his vote share?

Not to mention this is their final poll, and we're still seeing margins of 48/41, with 11% undecided/other, and 12% in the senate race. That's unacceptable. Also, we're talking like Hillary 2016 national margins if Trump is up by 7 here.

Also LOL at Biden going from a +12 lead with Indies last time to…. Trump with a +14 lead now? I mean people really can't be taking this seriously? Selzer is embarrassing themselves here.

wait tuesday for such conclusion...

[BlueSwan]

Just about the worst possible poll to wake up to. Jesus christ I hate this.

[Tender Branson]

Just about the worst possible poll to wake up to. Jesus christ I hate this.

This is only the start of things to come ...

[President Johnson]

You guys... 18 pages. Well done, well done, Atlas. This thread will go down in Atlas history.

Now that being said, I think people shouldn't freak out over a poll from a state Joe Biden doesn't even need and was never really favored to begin with. I never thought his chances are beyond 25-30% in this state. Even Ohio is more winnable. This poll is certainly an outlier for reasons stated numerous times: Trump is winning IA-01 by freakin' 15%? Nope, that ain't happen. He didn't even come close to this margin in 2016. I also find it extremely questionable undecideds are in the double digits. In late October? Come on, man. And where is Joe Biden's drop coming from? It's not that he had a scandal or so. Otherwise, the previous poll was an outlier. Well, the September survey may have been as well, since early polling in Iowa has always shown a pattern to overestimate Democrats, get our hopes high, before we find ourselves burnt on election day.

However, I wouldn't be shocked if Trump Iowa by four or five points, in which case neither of recent polls would be that off. Trends are real, and Iowa is trending away from Democrats. I wonder it was even a swing state for most of recent decades, but with voter coalitions changing, a state that is 90% white and doesn't have large metros doesn't bode well for the Democrats. At the same time, growing and increasingly diverse states in the Sunbelt like Georgia, Texas and Arizona are trending to the left and will certainly vote to the left of Iowa this year, as they did in 2016. Heck, even Texas did so last time, and Uncle Joe will do much better than Hillary in the Lone Star State.

While I kinda understand the fear this poll, if accurate, has some bad implications for Wisconsin and Michigan, there is nothing that backs this up. Not only quality polls from said states don't back it up, nor do 2018 or even 2016 election results. I think the Doomers are freaking out because 2016 has traumatized them, and from a purely psychological perspective, we constantly need reaffirming evidence Trump is going to lose badly and that there is literally zero chance he can turn it around. And anything, even a polls from a non-tipping point state that may suggest otherwise, creates a lot anxiety. And sometimes these emotions run over hard facts and numbers. It's human nature in a sense. Most of red and a decent number of maroon and green avatars just want the orange clownshow to end.

If anything, this poll makes the 413 Authoritarian Nut map less likely than it already was. But all things considered, Biden is still poisoned to crack 300 electoral votes. Trump's reelection chances remain very dim to say the least.

[Woody]

Iowa is MAGA country.