DES MOINES, Iowa – There will not be a final Des Moines Register poll in Iowa ahead of Monday’s caucuses.
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 is reporting that the candidate left off the call was Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind.
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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.”
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 Register has published the Iowa Poll for 76 years, and Selzer & Co., which conducts the survey, has long been considered a well-regarded polling organization.
Fox News had not heard back from the Buttigieg campaign to confirm The Times’ reporting that Buttigiege was not listed.