Everyone’s waiting for Ann Selzer to release the most important Iowa caucus poll

J. Ann Selzer vividly remembers the moment when she first found out there was a problem.

“I was first alerted through a message on Twitter,” the renowned Iowa pollster recalled in an interview with POLITICO last week that represented her most expansive public comments yet about the four-year-old episode.

Selzer was at Drake University in Des Moines, preparing to release the numbers from her final poll of the 2020 Democratic caucuses — results so widely anticipated that CNN, a co-sponsor of the poll, had created an entire, hourlong show on which Selzer was set to provide commentary.

But those poll results never came out. Because of a technical error, CNN and the Des Moines Register scrapped the poll entirely. Two days later, a massive failure of the state Democratic Party’s infrastructure delayed the caucus results themselves for nearly a day.

Now Selzer — and Iowa — get another chance. The Des Moines Register’s final poll of this year’s Republican race, co-sponsored by NBC News and the cable company Mediacom, is expected to be released this weekend.

The poll occupies a legendary space in the closing 48 hours before the caucuses. Even in a thus-far one-sided contest, it will once again be closely watched for signs of movement. And Selzer hopes it will help move past the nightmare of 2020.

The poll isn’t just notable for its historical accuracy — it can also fuel the momentum of a late-surging candidate or pile on a flagging one. Selzer’s poll showed former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) gaining steam in the final days before the 2012 caucuses, and he ultimately overtook Mitt Romney and won.

That’s a key part of the poll’s influence: Caucuses aren’t primaries. Momentum and organization have always been the keys to victory — or