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The Focus Group Podcast

S4 Ep15: It's Not That Hard to Win Iowa (with J. Ann Selzer)

The Focus Group Podcast

The Bulwark

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.82.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2024

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Iowa's living legend of polling, J. Ann Selzer, joins Sarah to listen to Iowa Republicans ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses. Ann discusses her polling, how she does her own focus groups, and how Republican voters are feeling about Donald Trump (good), and the rest of the candidates (lukewarm at best). Ann also discusses how Donald Trump's efforts in Iowa are MUCH better organized in 2024 than in 2016...which will matter in the sub-zero weather Iowa is expecting on caucus night.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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per month required. Terms of plaeton.co. UK. Hello everyone and welcome to the focus group podcast I'm Sarah Longwell publisher of

0:41.2

the bull work and we are here to guide you through the beginning of

0:44.8

real voting in this presidential primary which begins in Iowa which could

0:50.9

end up being the first and last date that matters in this presidential primary, but we shall see.

0:57.0

Now, people who are looking for an optimistic case for a non-Trump we'll tell you something like this.

1:03.2

Sure, the national polls show a massive lead for Trump,

1:06.4

but it's a little narrower in early states.

1:09.2

Sometimes I'm one of these people.

1:11.5

Trump is leading by 52 points in the national real clear politics

1:15.1

average as of this taping. But if you zoom into Iowa home of the first in the

1:19.9

nation caucuses, Trump is leading by only 33 points.

1:23.8

So that's the hopeful part.

1:25.6

But, ooh boy, did our Iowa focus groups tell you

1:28.8

why Trump is leading by such a large margin? My guess today is a living legend in the state of Iowa and in our

1:36.8

office full of political nerds, J Ann Selzer, president of the polling firm

1:41.8

Selzer and Company, who is most well known for conducting

1:46.0

the Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll, which is the gold standard in Iowa. Anne, thank you so much for being here.

1:54.0

My pleasure.

...

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