r/neoliberal • u/BastianMobile NATO • Nov 17 '24

Pollster Ann Selzer ending election polling, moving 'to other ventures and opportunities' News (US)

https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2024/11/17/ann-selzer-conducts-iowa-poll-ending-election-polling-moving-to-other-opportunities/76334909007/

1.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

185

u/justbuildmorehousing Norman Borlaug Nov 17 '24

I think thats really diminishing that she had stuck her neck out from the pack in several elections previously and ended up basically nailing it. Its not a random number generator out there and she really did seem to have a good method for polling Iowa really accurately

58

u/West-Code4642 Gita Gopinath Nov 17 '24

I still don't get how her poll shifted so much in one month. She has trump up s month before. Guess she had loud Harris voters and shy trump voters

22

u/Khiva Nov 17 '24

I would really love for her - or someone - to give a breakdown on this.

3

u/ThePevster Milton Friedman Nov 17 '24

Nate Silver talked about it on his blog. Basically she uses an older polling methodology where you randomly dial numbers, and that methodology tends to skew quite Democratic.

1

u/Khiva Nov 18 '24

Interesting. I remember reading that her unique skill came from her ability to assemble a sample set. If it was all just random then I got something wrong somewhere.

Still, wild that this methodology would be so right until it was unfathomably wrong.