DES Moines, Iowa — Just a few days before the presidential election, a Des Moines Registry The poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading by three points over former President Donald Trump.

Instead, Trump won Iowa by a historic margin.

“Other people were skeptical, of course,” said Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa. “Again, it looked out of line with all the other polls, and it turned out to be out of line. It turned out to be an outlier.”

J. Ann Selzer, who conducted the survey, called this a major omission. Save Des Moines Op-Ed. He said his team is in the process of reviewing the data to see what happens, but that will take some time.

Selzer is considered the gold standard in polling in Iowa. It accurately predicted the winner of the presidential races in Iowa from 2008 to 2020, but experts say something has changed in the political landscape when it comes to voting accuracy.

“There’s a phenomenon that’s been going on since President Trump first became a candidate in 2016,” said Karen Kedrowski, a political science professor at Iowa State. “The polls don’t fully reflect the support he has, and pollsters are a little confused about what that is. It’s what’s called the ‘shy Trump voter,’ where people are not willing or able to explain it to the pollsters,” Kedrowski said. “They tend to split in favor of ,” he said.

Selzer also responded to critics who accused him of manipulating data. He told multiple news organizations that the poll could energize GOP voters who are poised for victory.

“The reason I don’t think that’s the case is because of a combination of factors,” Hagle said. “Number one, it’s a huge swing. Again, if the polls show Harris with a three-point lead and you end up with a 13-point lead for Trump, that’s a 16-point lead. That’s too much. The excitement of a poll is too much in two or three days.” It won’t change.”

Selzer said they used the same voting method that showed Trump winning Iowa in 2016 and 2020.

“We will look at turnout rates in the surveys and compare them to our demographic mix,” Selzer wrote in his editorial. “We’ll look at how much tea is left in our poll regarding the trending story about Black and Latino men’s increasing alignment with Trump and his policies. If we can figure that out, we’ll look at how the late deciders fall. Without a traditional exit poll for Iowa.”