Scrutiny of Iowa polling results began after the 2024 election collapse.

Unfortunately, the results of the final Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll released Saturday night before Tuesday’s election were very different from the actual vote.

The survey showed Vice President Kamala Harris leads by 3 percentage points, but former President Donald Trump won the state by 13 points. Editors here at the Register are taking a close look at these inequalities.

For 81 years, the mission of the Iowa Poll has been to reflect the pure, unvarnished opinions of Iowans, without pressure or interpretation from politicians, the media or others. With few exceptions, the last public opinion poll in Iowa before the election closely matched the actual vote.

For example, it accurately reflects Iowans’ support for then-candidate Donald Trump. on the eve of the 2016 presidential elections and for President Trump ahead of the 2020 elections. It also reflected his widespread support ahead of the Iowa caucuses in January, showing him 28 percentage points ahead two days before his 30-point win.

The register editors will work closely with sociologist J. Ann Seltzer, view all methodologies and other factors that could influence the difference.

I’ve been working with Iowa polling data for 20 years. As with this survey, sometimes its results differed from other surveys and conventional wisdom.

The latest poll, released two days before the 2012 Iowa caucuses, showed Republican Rick Santorum up no more than 6% in the previous three Iowa polls, rising to third place with 15%, and had the final two days of voting remained in side, he would have passed Ron Paul in second place. Only the Iowa poll found a surge in Santorum’s votes, which ultimately led to him being declared the winner in the official vote count, ahead of Mitt Romney by 34 votes.

I was in the room that morning when Seltzer presented the latest results to stunned editors and reporters, who immediately dug into the data to try to understand why the results were different from previous Iowa polls and other polls on the race. Likewise, when Seltzer shared the latest survey results, she knew they would be greeted with surprise and skepticism by Register reporters and the public.

She has already examined the data, testing whether the sample of 808 Iowans differs in a statistically significant way from other Iowa polls. She and her assistant dug into the poll’s demographic data, showing that across all dimensions, be it age, party affiliation or rural or urban, Iowans surveyed this time matched those in recent Iowa polls. They did it.

But this time, the poll results did not reflect how Iowans voted three days later.

Seltzer began a “review” raise any plausible question about what happened” between the last night of voting on October 31 and the close of polls on November 5.

On December 12, 1943, when the editors announced the launch of the Iowa Poll, they stated: “The Poll was opened as a public service to the people of Iowa, so that every citizen would know what the people of this State as a whole think. think and how they share opinions on every important topic of the day.”

In the eight decades since, the Iowa Citizen Poll has measured Iowans’ opinions on everything from farm policy to traffic cameras to the quality of mental health services in the state. We want it to accurately reflect the sentiments of Iowans going forward.

Des Moines Register journalists bring the same dedication to accuracy to our work every day, covering a wide variety of news in the Des Moines metro and across Iowa, from city council and school board actions to business openings, concert announcements, high school events. sports, as well as the Cyclones and Hawkeyes.

Iowans just witnessed a historic election in which President-elect Donald Trump won our state, the Electoral College and the national popular vote. Iowa Republicans appear poised to win congressional elections and expand their majorities in the Iowa House and Senate. Register reporters and USA TODAY’s political coverage team will provide in-depth coverage as Iowa lawmakers and the new president chart their 2025 policy agenda.

The Des Moines Register will continue to be your trusted source for objective news during this moment in history and beyond.

Carol Hunter is the Register’s executive editor. She wants to hear your questions, ideas or problems for stories call 515-284-8545, [email protected]or on Twitter: @carolhunter.