President-elect Donald Trump, who has already rebuked the activism of politicized pollsters, called for an investigation into the Des Moines Register's Ann Selzer for election meddling and "fraud."
"A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time," Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. "She knew exactly what she was doing. Thank you to the GREAT PEOPLE OF IOWA for giving me such a record breaking vote, despite possible ELECTION FRAUD by Ann Selzer and the now discredited 'newspaper' for which she works.
"An investigation is fully called for!"
Selzer announced this weekend she is retiring as the pollster for the famed Iowa Poll after the final poll just two days before the Nov. 5 general election showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading by 3 points in the deep-red state that Trump won by nearly 14 points (56% to 42.7%), roughly a 16-point miss.
"Polling is a science of estimation, and science has a way of periodically humbling the scientist," Selzer wrote for the Register, announcing her departure she said was planned before the election. "So, I'm humbled, yet always willing to learn from unexpected findings.
"My work will continue for current clients and for clients yet to come. In addition, I'm thinking about how to put other talents to work for the benefit of new clients. My integrity means a lot to me. To those who have questioned it, there are likely no words to dissuade."
Gannett Media Chief Content Officer Kristin Roberts vows the once-bellwether Iowa poll will "evolve as we find new ways to accurately capture public sentiment and the pulse of Iowans on state and national issues," she told CNN in a statement.
"Our mission is to provide trusted news and content to our readers and the public," Roberts said. "We did not deliver on that promise when we shared results of the last Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, which did not accurately capture the outcome of the presidential election."
Critics saw it differently.
"When you become the laughingstock of the profession, it is time to seek 'other ventures,'" conservative documentarian Dinesh D'Souza wrote Sunday on X. "The Democrats won't miss her at all. Her usefulness to them is at an end."
An Illinois podcaster called Selzer's last poll "deliberate propaganda."
"Ann Selzer's retirement announcement confirms what we already knew: The Harris +3 was deliberate propaganda," David Chapman wrote on X.
Hours after the release of Selzer's poll two days before the election, Trump ripped the tactic as a "corrupt" polling in a "crooked country."
"It's all corrupt; she's corrupt," Trump told his Lititz, Pennsylvania, campaign rally that Sunday morning, which aired in part on Newsmax and in full on the free Newsmax2 streaming platform. "I am running against a totally corrupt person, and I'm really not running against her. I'm running against a corrupt machine called the Democrat Party. It's totally a corrupt party."
Trump used the "fake news" poll as a rally cry for voter turnout that would ultimately net him big victories in Iowa, the Electoral College, and even the popular vote.
"This is it; this is the moment: We've being waiting nine years for this, and we've got two days," Trump said. "And we've got all this crap going on with the press and with the fake stuff and the fake polls.
"By the way, the polls are just as corrupt as some of the writers back there. They can make those polls sing. ... They brag about it."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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