ann selzer?uest: there is such an interesting parallel universe here of what is happening on the democratic side and what's happening on the republican side. i question we asked is whether you think the system is rate to favor -- rigged to favor the powerful and wealthy or if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead? on the republican side, if you think the system is rigged in favor of the powerful and wealthy, that is one of the strongest constituencies supporting donald trump. on the democratic side, it is one of the strongest constituencies supporting bernie sanders. we had a caller who said i want to stop trump and go to bernie sanders. there are parallels that reflect a nation wishing for dramatic change. host: bruce in iowa, democrat. will you be caucusing tonight, and if so, for which candidate? caller: no, i probably won't be. i have to work those hours. i do believe that i probably will be voting for bernie sanders. i do believe the system is rigged. i do believe that the top 1% has

the woman behind the gold standard of iowa polling ann selzer joins the conversation.e" is back in a moment live from java joes in des moines, iowa. cause we were born 100 years ago into a new american century. born with a hunger to fly and a passion to build something better. and what an amazing time it's been, decade after decade of innovation, inspiration and wonder. so, we say thank you america for a century of trust, for the privilege of flying higher and higher, together. ♪ whyto learn, right?e? so you can get a good job and you're not working for peanuts. well what if i told you that peanuts can work for you? while you guys are busy napping, peanuts are delivering 7 grams of protein and 6 essential nutrients right to your mouth. you ever see a peanut take a day off? no. peanuts don't even get casual khaki fridays. because peanuts take their job seriously. so unless you want a life of skimming wifi off the neighbors, you'll harness the hardworking power of the peanut. (cheering) at ally bank, no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like vacations equ

i want to talk about how we cover polls and how polls are conducted with the legendary anne selzer.i hear you laughing when i say "legendary." i know you sometimes don't like the type for your work. >> that's exactly right. i keep trying to say we need to pierce the veil of infallibility. and i -- >> you want me to take the word "legendary" out of my script, ann? i'll fix it. >> being called the gold standard -- i'm happy at silver standard. >> silver standard. i wanted to play the clip from last week. i want to ask you, how should i have introduced those numbers? what caveat should i have included, and then, of course, by extension, when other channels, other shows cover the numbers, how should we cover them? >> well, the caucus in iowa is the hardest polling job that there is. in fact, i went back to look up the etymology of the word caucus which i think comes from the algonquin meaning impossible to poll. the way at that caucus is designed, it is -- it introduces and encourage changes made at the very last moment including in the caucus room, on caucus night. we finished our poll

iowa pollster ann selzer says even as her latest survey shows donald trump leading among republicansd cruz is ahead among evangelicals. >> we see surprises all the time coming from the evangelical vote and that's why you have to look at ted cruz and his ability to organize that group as a potential surprise on caucus night. >> woodruff: it was evangelicals who helped propel mike huckabee in 2008 and rick santorum four years ago to victory here. this year, not only are huckabee and santorum running again, so is a cluster of other republicans. radio iowa's o. kay henderson: >> nine months ago, rand paul was trying to lock in evangelical supporters. you have ben carson, who has really kept a core of support, and that comes from the states' evangelical churches. you have donald trump, who has lined up an important endorsement from the president of liberty university. and you have ted cruz, who has an effort to try to get a pastor in each precinct in iowa. >> woodruff: but the former chairman of the iowa republican party, matt strawn, says the evangelical voters these candidates are after

>> dickerson: we are joined now by company president and, ann selzer who is here the talk about her new bloomberg des moines iowa poll, let's talk with the republicans, what did the numbers about trump voters? >> well, one of the things we love about getting fresh data about a race and especially this close to the caucus is it starts to put some interesting puzzle pieces together. as you can see, donald trump is leading the race by five points, but the constituencies of that lead are very interesting, so he does especially well with moderates, he does especially well with people who consider themselves predominant he mainstream republicans, but he also does very well, his strongest showing is with people who say the system is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful, so you kind of have an interesting group of people who have come together to support donald trump as our leader in our poll. >> dickerson: and what about ted cruz? he is not too far behind donald trump, what do you find about his voters? >> he is not too far behind, but he has slipped out of first place, so you always think

who: ann selzer, pollster did the final poll for "the des moines register" and bloomberg. thanks for digging into the numbers with us. we appreciate it. guest: my pleasure. host: that does it for today's "washington journal." we will be back here tomorrow. do not miss our coverage tonight at 7:00 p.m. eastern tonight at c-span and c-span2. we will bring you to yesterday where ted cruz held a campaign at johnson county fairgrounds in iowa city. he talks about issues he would tackle in office as his first day as president. he was joined by glenn beck and "duck dynasty's" phil robertson. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: "washington journal" continues [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] ted, ted, ted. [applause] [cheering] sen. ted cruz: god bless the great state of iowa. what an incredible, incredible afternoon. what a bit of history we are seeing. a strong conservative patriots are coming together and standing united. heidiot to say -- isn't

and, you know, ann selzer is not seeing signs of a record turnout tonight. >> you are hearing somethingl the campaigns are saying we believe we will bring more people out this year. sin was referring to the gold standard, the register since 1988 has nailed it every time since 2008 when it was romney and ended up being santorum. do you think there may be confusion of outcome? >> the poll captured a little bit more than was there. correct. >> can you imagine how unorthodox campaign this is. i was out with donald trump. he told me they only uses two pieces of direct mail, a christmas card and letter. a letter that they could put on their fridge. on the other side, i saw one of ted cruz's top guys. he told me that basically on friday and saturday they had 55,000 telephone calls from call centers into iowans. they knocked on 1,800 alone. if you want to talk about two unorthodox names, there you go. >> trump with the christmas card. cruz went with a subpoena. >> he is scaring people to the polls. >> cruz is running with the exception of that mailer, he is running the khrafrbg iowa go to every

yesterday ann selzer, their pollster, put out a great postmortem on what happened but donald trump was his favorite trumpeter of these pollsters. he would say iowa was the core of his game. but it's an expectations game. you want expectations to be high enough where people think you're strong but not so high a second-place finish looks like a loss. he may be learning the limits of selling himself. >> but also this new york billionaire thing is real. ted cruz really road that new york values and, in fact, only 5% of the people in those caucuses said he shared their values. 5%. so i think what you got a turnout against donald trump. >> there a very specific place. >>> trump also kept his focus on ted cruz. he tweeted "anyone who watched ted cruz's far too long overly flamboyant rambling speech last night would say that was his howard dean moment." we'll let howard comment on that. and in new hampshire last night, trump accepted the endorsement of former u.s. senator scott brown of massachusetts and countered cruz's recent attack that trump supports universal health care. >> i have been o