> Why did one mistake cost her career?

It didn’t. She retired before Trump came for her and before the election outcome was known.

So I looked around a bit ...

> before the election outcome was known.

Selzer announced her retirement November 17th in the op-ed below, which was after the election results were known. All the news I saw about her retirement is dated the same day, so that appears to be the announcement. In the article, she claims to have informed some people privately in 2023 that she would retire after the election.

https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/20...

> before Trump came for her

I can easily find earlier news saying Trump attacked Selzer; for example, this is from when her poll came out, pre-election.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/04/politics/video/ann-selzer...

This November 18 article - from the next day - says the police had warned her that her safety was at risk. It doesn't say when that warning happened, but it seems likely it was not in the 24 hours since announcing her retirement.

https://www.kttc.com/2024/11/19/iowas-ann-selzer-responds-tr...

(For all: it's Selzer, not Seltzer - there's no 't'.)

Because it pissed off Donald Trump and the media is busy kowtowing to him.

you're being downvoted but you're actually pretty much right. She got a lot of backlash from the right accusing her poll of being politically motivated. To the point where they pressured institutions to force her out

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/us/politics/ann-selzer-io...

I'm fine with the downvotes. There are others saying the same thing as me much more cogently -- they should be upweighted and mine downweighted.

Who pressured what institutions?

Trump sued her, after she retired as planned. Trump sues everyon.

Trump and others were attacking her and physically threatening her before she retired. See my other comment for evidence.

You’re delusional if you think the media kowtows to him. I’m not even going to post sources, a quick search will show even left leaning sites saying the overwhelming reporting is negative about him.

It’s more of a systemic failure than a single mistake. If you’re a business that releases one major product version every year or two that accounts for your entire revenue, and you completely blow the product on the last release, there’s a good chance you’re not getting another chance if you’re a small-medium business. Compare her firm to any number of smaller gaming and entertainment studios.

Selzer wasn’t gallup or some other big player that was continuously releasing a wide range of evolving polls, but a once-an-election shop that was multiple standard deviations away from reality in the wrong direction, on the biggest stage in history. Who would contract Selzer ever again?

Someone who understands that 97% success rate is better than much smaller success rate?

Sounds like the success rate of Arthur Andersen. Whatever happened to them?

A pollster’s reputation isn’t everything, but it’s close.

> Who would contract Selzer ever again?

Presumably anyone who is familiar with her overall body of work and the concept of an outlier.

Pollsters are increasingly herding. Perhaps after this election all unexpected results will be suppressed or adjusted, which seems to be what you're advocating for.

> Who would contract Selzer ever again?

People like hedge funds, who don't care about perception, have a mechanism to turn accuracy into dollars and can ride out occasional misses.

The most likely scenario is that it didn't. Selzer, a successful 68-year-old, was likely about to retire anyway.

That is pure speculation without evidence, which isn't helpful. There is evidence in other parts of this subthread.

Huh? It’s evidence-based speculation. Of course it’s conceivable that a 68-year-old would have less concerns about putting her career on the line. I’m trying to understand how you think a conversation on HN should operate

You could provide evidence - just look at the rest of the subthread.

Would you be satisfied with stats on average age of retirement?

> Why did one mistake cost her career?

It didn't.

> Over a year ago I advised the Register I would not renew when my 2024 contract expired with the latest election poll as I transition to other ventures and opportunities.

> Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course. It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite. I am proud of the work I’ve done for the Register, for the Detroit Free Press, for the Indianapolis Star, for Bloomberg News and for other public and private organizations interested in elections. They were great clients and were happy with my work.

You can of course choose to interpret this if you wish as her conveniently inventing a narrative after-the-fact, but that seems unlikely. The polling industry doesn't work that way, and it's particularly unlikely that the Register would have cut ties with her over a single poll after her impressive track record for nearly forty years.

Since there's no real evidence that's what happened, the most reasonable conclusion is that, as she said, she decided to retire after spending four decades doing the same thing.

[0] https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/2...

The idea is not that the Register cut ties with her, but that her personal safety was at risk and she was getting brutally harassed by millions of people and the POTUS-elect. See my other comment for details.

Yeah, after reading the NYT article[0], I'll amend my earlier statement "since there's no real evidence that's what happened," since that is some pretty strong evidence that something happened (albeit more complicated than simply "her poll was wrong, so she lost her job").

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/us/politics/ann-selzer-io...

She faced heavy retribution from Donald Trump who claimed the poll was a politically motivated one to shift the narrative

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/us/politics/ann-selzer-io...

Seems like an absurd claim given it was less than 2 weeks out from the election and polls that show a side losing can often have a motivating effect on a base

Truth is that voter behavior changes more radically than pollsters admit from election to election. We can statistically model direction of "error" but we can't statistically model direction of "bias". A grade A pollster like Ann Selzer could have the perfect formula one election but that formula could be a total miss the next

The important thing that forecasters like Silver point out is that we need those pollsters to stick around and use the SAME methodology. Even if gets less useful at predicting the outcome, having a consistent signal with the same methodology can still be of immense statistical importance. And it's extremely important that we don't scare away pollsters from publishing "outlier" results. Doing so only encourages herding which is a growing problem in polling