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Former Des Moines Register pollster Ann Selzer, whose shock pre-election poll showed Kamala Harris beating President-elect Donald J. Trump in Iowa, is defending herself from critics.

The vaunted polling wizard’s now infamous misfire was seized on by the media to boost the Democrat nominee on the weekend before voters went to the polls, being heavily hyped as proof that she could win in a state that was easily taken by Trump in the two previous elections.

Selzer’s poll showing Harris surging into a late lead in the Hawkeye State by 47 to 44 percent was a shot of hopium into the arms of the vice president’s backers, one that wore off when Trump took the state by over 10 points on Election Day, leaving Selzer wearing goat horns and some questioning whether she deliberately cooked the numbers.

“I am mystified about what the motivation anybody thinks I had and would act on in such a public poll,” Selzer said during a discussion broadcast by PBS Iowa over the weekend.

“I don’t understand it. And the allegations I take very seriously. They’re saying that this was election interference, which is a crime. So, the idea that I intentionally set up to deliver this response, when I’ve never done that before, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to do it, it’s not my ethic,” Selzer added, insisting that there was no hanky panky involved in her epic miss which some found to be highly suspicious given her impeccable reputation.

“A totally Fake poll that caused great distrust and uncertainty at a very critical time. 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!,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social, suggesting that Selzer rigged her poll.

“To suggest without a single shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, I was being paid by somebody, it’s all just kind of…it’s hard to pay too much attention to it except that they are accusing me of a crime,” Selzer said, rejecting the idea that she was anything more than badly wrong.

Last month, Selzer announced that she was retiring from polling with the wildly inaccurate Harris prediction being the capper to what had previously been a long and distinguished career.

“I’m not here to break any news. If you were hoping that I had landed on exactly why things went wrong, I have not. It does sort of awaken me in the middle of the night and I think, well maybe I should check this, this is something that would be very odd if it were to happen. But we’ve explored everything. The Des Moines Register in an unprecedented move for transparency has put online our cross tabs, our waiting system, and my analysis and that I’ve not needed to update because it was pretty complete. We don’t know. Do I wish I knew? Yes, I wish I knew,” Selzer said during the Iowa PBS discussion.

Chris Donaldson
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