The newspaper, along with media partners CNN and Mediacom, announced Saturday night that they would not be releasing their survey, which is considered the gold standard in Iowa polling.
The shocking news came after a Democratic presidential candidate’s name was omitted in at least one of the poll's interviews with a respondent. The New York Times reported that the candidate left off the call was Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind.
The Buttigieg campaign confirmed the report.
The Register, in a statement posted just minutes before the poll was scheduled to be released, said: “Nothing is more important to the Register and its polling partners than the integrity of the Iowa Poll. Today, a respondent raised an issue with the way the survey was administered, which could have compromised the results of the poll. It appears a candidate’s name was omitted in at least one interview in which the respondent was asked to name their preferred candidate.”
“While this appears to be isolated to one surveyor, we cannot confirm that with certainty. Therefore, the partners made the difficult decision to not to move forward with releasing the Iowa Poll,” the newspaper added.
In a statement, CNN added that “we were unable to ascertain what happened during this respondent’s interview, and cannot determine if this was a single isolated incident.”
Statement on the final installment of the CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll: pic.twitter.com/vIRpqMXKfQ— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) February 2, 2020
The Buttigieg campaign, according to The New York Times, said that an Iowa supporter received a phone call from an operator working for the pollster, but that Buttigieg’s name was not listed among the Democratic presidential candidates.
The Buttigieg campaign later confirmed the report.
We shared this with the organizations behind the poll, who conducted an internal investigation and determined not to release it. We applaud CNN and the Des Moines Register for their integrity. (2/2)— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) February 2, 2020
I’m seeing different explanations as to why it was canceled:
It's not even that Buttigieg was left off of the Des Moines Register poll; the accusation that is blocking the poll from being released is that ONE pollster MISPRONOUNCED Buttigieg's name ONCE, to ONE voter who was already a Buttigieg supporter. pic.twitter.com/9NAkdXPm0A— ᏔმƦ𝔢ჳ💤 (@mooncult) February 2, 2020
And weird conspiracy theories about why it happened:
I'm not shocked that Bernie Sanders supporters tried to rig a poll. That's how they roll.— The Who Matters (@raising_hill) February 2, 2020
Good on CNN and The Des Moines Register for stopping their bullshit.
Huh? That makes zero sense, but exactly the kind of idiocy we now expect out of election Twitter. And you can bet both pro-Buttigieg people and anti-Buttigieg people will complain about this forever and ever…
Comments
Post a Comment