While a long-time resident of the Hawkeye State, Ms Selzer was born a few states along, in Kansas.
Even if she might have seemed destined for life as a pollster – conducting a survey of “neighbourhood moms” at the age of five, according to the Wall Street Journal – she undertook a pre-medical course at the University of Kansas before finding her heart lay in data.
She took up a communications theory and research program at the University of Iowa, followed by an academic fellowship in Britain and a stint on Capitol Hill, then returned to the state permanently.
While at the Des Moines Register in 1987, Ms Selzer dug through the newspaper’s polling data and questioned its conclusion that George H. W. Bush would beat Bob Dole in the Republican caucuses.
“I believe the Register is publishing that George Bush will win the caucus, and I don’t think that’s true,” she told her editor. The Register changed its prediction to Dole – correctly – while Bush came in third.
Selzer keeps prejudices out of equation
Ms Selzer, who still conducts the Register’s polls after leaving the newspaper in 1994 to set up a private firm, samples voters from the lists of registered voters and does not weight her results by past voting habits.
Most importantly, she keeps her prejudices out of the equation and does not care who wins or loses – as long as she is right.
“I like to say, “Keep your dirty hands off your data,’” she told FiveThirtyEight.
“That’s making assumptions of what is or isn’t going to happen and then deciding you’re going to weigh down the minority vote because you don’t think they’re going to show up.”
The approach has proved a winning one, and elevated her to one of the most respected and accurate pollsters in America.