J. Ann Selzer, Public Opinion Pollster

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Donald Trump expands and solidifies his lead in the latest Iowa Poll. We'll go more in depth on the results and what they mean with Pollster Ann Selzer on this edition of Iowa Press.

 

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For decades, Iowa Press has brought you political leaders and newsmakers from across Iowa and beyond. Celebrating 50 years of broadcast excellence on statewide Iowa PBS, this is the Friday, December 15th edition of Iowa Press. Here is Kay Henderson.

 

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Henderson: You, like me, may have been up at 5 a.m. on Monday to learn the results of the latest Des Moines Register, NBC News, Mediacom Poll on the Iowa Caucus race. Today our guest is Ann Selzer. She is the Iowa Poll. She's the President of Selzer and Company here in the Des Moines metro and she's here to give us the full briefing on what those numbers mean, say, etcetera. Welcome back to Iowa Press.

 

Selzer: It's always a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Kay.

 

Henderson: Also joining us are Brianne Pfannenstiel, she is the author of the Des Moines Register's story about the Poll. She is the Chief Politics Reporter for the Des Moines Register. And Erin Murphy is the Des Moines Bureau Chief for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids.

 

Murphy: So, as the outsider here I'll start. This latest poll, Ann, had a historic margin at the top. Is this race over?

 

Selzer: You will never find me saying that the race is over. I have seen enough to know not to say that. Things happen in the final two weeks right ahead of caucuses that couldn't be predicted sitting here at a table in December, a full month ahead of that. So, I would never say never. However, symbolically for a candidate to break the 50% mark, that is symbolically important. That means a majority of likely republican caucus goers are supporting Donald Trump. And algebraically it is important as well because that means there's not a lot of percentage points leftover for other candidates, certainly multiple candidates, to be able to come close.

 

Murphy: We'll get to some of those things too. You mentioned, we've seen it historically, right, and I think Brianne has written about this, that there is evidence of past caucus cycles of polling being at one place in December and big changes in the last month, right?

 

Selzer: Indeed, the one that comes most to mind was Rick Santorum who had never been in double digits. He was hanging in there at 4%, 5% and so on. The first night that we were in the field for the final poll, he got 10%, maybe it was 11%. And I remarked, oh my gosh, Santorum is in double digits. And then the next night it was higher, and the next night it was higher, and the next night it was higher. And the trajectory had him really honing in on Mitt Romney, who he eventually defeated on caucus night. So, from nothing to winner, we've seen it.

 

Murphy: And that's why you say never say never.

 

Selzer: That's why never say never.

 

Pfannenstiel: And some of the top lines in this poll, Donald Trump is ahead with 51%, Ron DeSantis is in second place with 19%, Nikki Haley at 16%, everyone else kind of trailing in the low single digits. But one number kind of beyond the top lines that we found really striking in this poll was the percentage of first-time caucus goers and kind of where they're landing. Can you talk about what we're seeing with those types of caucus goers and why that is meaningful?

 

Selzer: It's especially meaningful because of what we have seen, again, in past caucuses. So, Donald Trump is exceling with first time caucus goers. So, he is 51% overall, he gets 63% of first-time caucus goers. He does even better with first time caucus goers. And what is meaningful is the idea that he was going to get what he got and he had reached a ceiling, a word I never use except when quoting others. And so, what the idea would be, and I have said this when doing briefings is, if that is his wedge of the pie, you need to make a bigger pie, you need to go find people so that his wedge stays in the same area, I've got lots of math references today, the geometry is it has got the same area but you make a bigger pie so proportionately it's a smaller piece. Well, it turns out perhaps that Donald Trump is the one who has gone out and found new first time caucus goers.

 

Henderson: Can you look at the tea leaves from your data and give us an idea what turnout might be because we're all sort of curious as to whether this will be a record. We've heard Governor Kim Reynolds on the stump out campaigning in Iowa say, I want this to be a record turnout. Can you tell?

 

Selzer: Not really. And we're not really designed to do that. I can tell you that our incidence rate for the phone calls, and we're calling everybody who is on the list of registered voters from the Secretary of State's office, so we're not cutting that down to just republicans, which some polls do. If you're on the list, you're in our sample to be called. And it's about a 5% incidence. And it's really hard, if it were 4, if it were 6, that is going to be a dramatic difference. So, I don't try to say any kind of projection. I can report to you that I hear people saying it will be more than 200,000, which would be substantially above the 180,000 from 2016.

 

Murphy: So, let's go back to never say never really quick. If I am in the Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley campaign offices and I'm pouring over these latest results, what is in there that gives me hope or optimism, if anything.

 

Selzer: Oh, that gives you hope. Let's see, for Ron DeSantis, he inched up three percentage points. He had been tied with Nikki Haley at 16. He is now at 19, as Brianne said. I think that is the one bit of good news for him. His overall footprint, that is first choice, second choice or if not actively considering, didn't change. So, he's not getting any more traction on that one. But he didn't lose anything. Nikki Haley on the other hand, this was not a good poll for her. And especially in the context of the national press as well as local pundits saying, she is poised and ready to go. And if she was on the launch pad, that rocket did not take off. So, she held steady in her first-choice votes. The thing I thought was the most telling is that the proportion saying that they felt mildly enthusiastic, that's not great, rose 20 percentage points. So, that is coming from people who had said before they were very enthusiastic, again just arithmetically. And you've got to think, with all of that hype, that not only did her number not change, but the enthusiasm level dropped.

 

Pfannenstiel: Going back to Donald Trump again, you mentioned that some people tend to say, well maybe he has a ceiling, and that's not a term that you like to use. But in this poll, we've seen Donald Trump's lead grow over the three Iowa Polls that we've done so far this year. What are you seeing in terms of his strength and potential room to grow?

 

Selzer: He has got a very strong base who are locked in and say their minds will not change. So, it's 70% of people who say they are supporting Donald Trump say, my mind is made up. Well, that's a strong number, especially compared to people who say Ron DeSantis is their first choice, or say that Nikki Haley is their first choice, it's half as many. So, he's got a bigger group of supporters and a big majority saying their minds are made up.

 

Pfannenstiel: And another number that was kind of striking to us as well, we asked how likely republican caucus goers feel about Donald Trump's legal issues that he's facing. 73% said that they would be, that they don't see that as being a problem, that they think he can still beat Joe Biden regardless of his legal troubles. What does that --

 

Selzer: Well, and that's an increase. So, I think it was 65% when we measured that in October. So, these are people who see what is happening in terms of the apparent barriers to success for Donald Trump, actually they see it as a badge of honor, a badge of success. And it could be that their view of what is happening is only reinforcing their commitment to him as a candidate.

 

Henderson: You mentioned that the last Iowa Poll was conducted at the end of October. Since then, you have Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds endorsing Ron DeSantis. Bob Vander Plaats, who is a mover and shaker in Iowa's evangelical circles. Does your poll show us whether those endorsements moved the needle, which is another phrase that you may not care to use?

 

Selzer: Well, we asked about whether the endorsement, each of those two, plus one for Nikki Haley, made you more likely to support Ron DeSantis, less likely or did it not matter. And the most common answer for all of these was it doesn't matter. And there were, they kind of divided about evenly more likely or less likely. If you're the Ron DeSantis campaign, what two endorsements would you most like to have? I have to think, maybe there's one more I'm not thinking of, but I have to think that the Governor, who is very popular in Iowa GOP circles, and the leader of the Family Leader who has been a king maker in terms of people who are going to end up winning the caucuses, would matter. But in this group, not so much.

 

Henderson: What about the Governor's popularity?

 

Selzer: Her popularity is I think in this poll 78% have a favorable rating of her. When we do --

 

Murphy: Among republicans, right?

 

Selzer: Among likely republican caucus goers, that's right. So, that's a pretty high number. And she has fallen in line with a lot of policies that are active in the state of Florida. And whether she aligned with him or he aligned with her, I don't really know. But you would think they have created this holding hands together and that that would draw people to say, oh, if she likes Ron DeSantis, then that must be okay. Well, they like her. His favorability numbers aren't all that bad. But it just is not translating into support.

 

Murphy: Another thing that happened between the October poll and this one is the field got a little smaller by a couple of candidates. And the conventional wisdom maybe out there had been that a smaller field will benefit those who are trying to catch former President Trump, and the exact opposite happened. What do you make of that? His support grew and his lead grew despite Tim Scott and Doug Burgum getting out of the race?

 

Selzer: This is the kind of poll that sort of turns convention wisdom on its head. There were so many assumptions people had made. And one was that Nikki Haley was the rocket ship about to launch, and one was that Donald Trump already had everything he was going to have, and the third one was that the fewer candidates in the race, the harder it will be for Donald Trump to win. And so, there's this active encouragement for lesser performing candidates to get out and some did and the only candidate to really appear to benefit from that, maybe Ron DeSantis got some from that, we can't tell for sure, but Donald Trump was up 8 percentage points. So, the theory that he had all he was going to get and that fewer contenders would be bad for him or good for other candidates, our data says exactly the opposite.

 

Pfannenstiel: Let's talk about independents a little bit too. They were a really interesting number in our October poll having a lot of strength for Nikki Haley. And you used the term that I like to bring back, fickle, independents being kind of fickle. But what are we seeing from them in this latest December poll and what does that mean for candidates?

 

Selzer: Well, I think we're seeing the same thing, that they're less likely to support Donald Trump. And I say that with a caveat that it is still a plurality of every demographic group that we take a look at, a plurality is choosing Donald Trump as their first choice. That said, Nikki Haley, she sort of stands out a bit from the rest of the crowd in being the most sort of drawing the people who are showing anti-Trump signs. So, we had that question we talked about before about whether it would be impossible for Donald Trump to win given his legal challenges. In fact, a majority of Nikki Haley supporters say, it would be impossible. So, you're drawing from people who are less on the Trump bandwagon, and that makes them more likely to be independents, more likely to see what is happening as not favorable.

 

Pfannenstiel: Another metric that we use in this poll that I think gives a lot of perspective to the field is what we call the footprint metric where we test first choice, second choice and then we ask people who else are you considering. Can you talk about why that is a useful tool, especially as we see candidates moving out of the race?

 

Selzer: Right, well it's a measure of the traction each of the candidates is getting. So, first choice or second choice, obviously that's where you want to be. But if you're not getting that, at least you want people to be actively considering you. And the footprint numbers range from high for Donald Trump, his highest performance yet, and I think that was up 8 or maybe 9 points at 76. So, three out of four likely republican caucus goers say they're at least considering. It's 67 for Ron DeSantis, 52 for Nikki Haley and then Ramaswamy is 38 and the others are in single digits. If you're in single digits on your footprint, at least actively considering, it would seem to be an important bit of feedback from there. But Donald Trump -- Ron DeSantis was sort of close in past polls and now there's a sizeable lead that he's holding there.

 

Murphy: Can I go back real quick to the -- I thought of a question on the first timers because that surprises me a little bit that Donald Trump continues to grow in that area. If we were sitting here eight years ago that makes sense. He was new to the political scene, that was a big part of his appeal was to people who weren't traditional political followers. That that is still happening through a term in the White House, another election and another caucus season, I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on that, in that he is still growing with people who are new to the political process all these years later?

 

Selzer: I don't know that I have the ethnographic anthropology explanation for that. What I will say as an observer is the idea that Ron DeSantis would be Trump issues but without the Trump personality, it's not the personality that is problematic I think, and it is the personality with Ron DeSantis. There's showmanship, there's big rallies, there's sort of the opportunity to feel like you're a part of something that is kind of fun. And I think that is drawing some more people in and that these Trump supporters who go to these rallies, as I understand it, are getting instructions to go bring your buddies, go bring your friends, let's make caucus night beautiful again.

 

Henderson: For those of us who cover this campaign, there's not a lot of daylight among these candidates in terms of their stand on the issues. What does your polling show you about how issues may be, if at all, motivating voters?

 

Selzer: I don't think issues were motivating in 2016. I recall on Election Night I was on Bloomberg TV and the reporter next to me turned to me and said, okay, it's going to be Trump, what's the agenda? And I go, we didn't measure any agenda. It was never about agenda. It has been more about the personality. To the extent that we have touched on issues and topics, it always comes down to Trump would be best for the most people. So, he wins that plurality contest. And we've tried it a few different ways. So, I don't think it's the issues that are differentiating.

 

Murphy: I wanted to back out a little bit here and talk about just the -- we've talked about this in the past on this show -- the challenges that pollsters face in current times and getting representative samples and getting people to pick up the phone. Just describe for us a little bit, if you would, how you're able to do that, how you approach that, and how you get enough people to have a sample size to feel confident in putting something out there?

 

Selzer: Well, I can tell you from firsthand experience, I was called by the Iowa Poll. I was at my office last however long ago it was and an interviewer said, hello, I'm calling from the Iowa Poll and gave our introduction. And I had to stop them and say, I don't want you to waste time with me, I can't participate. But he did a very nice job. So, the way we do it from a sampling perspective is we try to leave out as few people as possible. So, as I said, we use the Secretary of State's database. We send it for lookups so that we can get phone numbers matched to people. And we pay no attention as to whether they are considered active by the Secretary of State or not, or whether they participated in the 2022 or 2020 general election. There are some polling operations that would sort of exclude people who didn't appear to be active. But we're calling them all. And Iowa has a very high proportion of its residents who are registered to vote if they are eligible to vote. So, that gives us some confidence. And then we have a very great phone bank partner and they are polite and easy and if you're interested, they kind of make it fun and not a burden. So, I can't say that any one of those things is the reason. I think it helps that we're able to say we're calling from the Iowa Poll and it's something that people know and it's not that we're going to sell them anything. So, I think we get a higher response rate just because of who we are and the way we go about it.

 

Murphy: And to that anecdote, I wonder if you'd tell it, because I know we hear a lot, I don't believe the polls, I've never been called, I've never been polled. What should we tell people when we hear that, just because you haven't personally picked up the phone doesn't mean nobody is?

 

Selzer: Chances are you're not going to be called. So, you might have been called and you didn't pick up the phone or you might have been away when we called you. You know you didn't feel you had an opportunity to participate.

 

Pfannenstiel: And what are some of the challenges specifically of polling in the caucuses. This is a different process than a general election, than a normal primary. How do you think about those and kind of change your process to match them?

 

Selzer: The only change that we make is that in a general election we random digit dial so that we can call random cell phone numbers, random landline numbers and truly make every resident of the state of Iowa have an opportunity, who has a phone, that they are eligible to be contacted by the poll. For caucuses, because that incidence is so low, it gives us a little bit of a head start that when we call you, we can call you by name, and that that's helpful to us as well. But otherwise, it's a pretty standard way of going, it's just harder, it's just more expensive because there are far fewer people. It was just 180,000 the last time we had a republican caucus out of the 2 point some million registered voters. So, it's a small little universe that we go and try to capture.

 

Pfannenstiel: And for, again, we get a lot of feedback when we write about any kind of polling. But, for viewers who are looking at this and saying, well what if this isn't what happens on caucus night? Are you expecting this poll to hold going into caucus day? And kind of what is the purpose of doing a poll when it's a little bit farther out from the event?

 

Selzer: Right. Well, let me answer the last one first. The purpose is where are we now? And I think it's meaningful not only to your viewers and the Des Moines Register readers and NBC News viewers, for people to understand where things are standing in Iowa just now. I think that is vitally important. Do I expect that these numbers will hold? Why would we do any future polling if I went to the clients and said, no need, we're done? And the caucuses are designed for things to change on caucus night. And last time, the Ted Cruz organization knew that and were working the rooms on caucus night and the Donald Trump organization didn't do its homework, didn't have precinct captains in each of these precincts and therefore sometimes didn't have anybody to stand up and speak on behalf of the campaign, which is commonly the way it goes on caucus night. So, I think our final poll showed that Donald Trump was leading going into caucus night and I think it was his to lose and lose it he did. And I think he lost because he wasn't prepared for caucus night. And I think the Ted Cruz campaign was.

 

Henderson: To those viewers who would like some guidance, can you tell them what to look for in someone else's poll that they should just toss that one aside?

 

Selzer: Well, first of all, I encourage them to try. But it's difficult, even I know where to look and a lot of the methodology statements get hidden or are inadequate to make that assumption. The main thing I'm going to tell you that distinguishes us from most other polling, not all, there's some very good polls out there that do what I do, which is we don't make assumptions about what that future electorate is going to look like. We let the data -- we try to get out of the way of the data showing us. So, you'll look and they'll say how they weighted the data, this that and the other, and then they include in that who the likely demographics of the 2024 caucus are likely to be. And I go, really? How do you know what that is likely to be? Or they're weighting it based on who they voted for in the 2020 election or other factors like that, or maybe they're only talking to people who have caucused before. And this approach I call polling backward, that if you're creating a model of the future, what are you going to base it on? You're going to base it on what happened in the past. And I know that things can change. So, I want to have my fingers off the data, my dirty fingers I try to keep them off the data, so it will reveal to me how that's going to go.

 

Henderson: This past week former President Trump was lauding this poll, he called you a powerful pollster. I don't see you wearing a t-shirt with that on it. What is your reaction?

 

Selzer: It's in the works, no. My reaction is people praise polls that they like and people disparage polls that they don't like. So, you can't take anything too seriously.

 

Henderson: Well, we are out of time on this edition of Iowa Press. Thanks for joining us.

 

Selzer: It's always a pleasure. Thank you.

 

Henderson: You may watch every episode of Iowa Press at iowapbs.org. For everyone here at Iowa PBS, thanks for watching.

 

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Funding for Iowa Press was provided by Friends, the Iowa PBS Foundation.

 

The Associated General Contractors of Iowa, the public's partner in building Iowa's highway, bridge and municipal utility infrastructure.

 

Elite Casino Resorts is rooted in Iowa. Elite's 1,600 employees are our company's greatest asset. A family run business, Elite supports volunteerism, encourages promotions from within, and shares profits with our employees.

 

Across Iowa, hundreds of neighborhood banks strive to serve their communities, provide jobs and help local businesses. Iowa Banks are proud to back the life you build. Learn more at iowabankers.com.

 

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