Santa Claus will miss the Iowa Poll.

While it may be premature to write off the 81-year-old Iowa Poll, its future is clearly in doubt.

Poll director Ann Selzer announced she is stepping back from the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll after more than three decades; Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter, who championed the poll for more than a decade, is also retiring.

Both announcements follow the Iowa Poll’s now famous wrong call for Kamala Harris in last month’s election. That mistake quickly became the most notorious polling snafu since 1948, when Republican Thomas Dewey was predicted to defeat President Harry Truman.

One unanswered question is whether there will ever be another Iowa Poll. I don’t expect a decision anytime soon.

But what, you ask, does Santa have to do with any of this?

Christmas was a favorite topic of the Iowa Poll when I joined the Register and Tribune news staff in the mid-1970s, and it continued to show up in poll stories throughout the 1980s, when one of my duties was writing Iowa Poll stories.

I recently found six Christmas-themed Iowa Poll stories from those decades, including three that featured Santa. I remembered them well, because I wrote two of them. The stories covered a variety of topics, including:

Commercialization: One story asked Iowans about all the selling connected with Christmas.

It appeared Dec. 22, 1985, not long after “Santa Claus: The Movie” was released in theaters. The movie was about a legendary woodcutter from the Middle Ages, who was caught up in the toy making racket and was facing a modern-day elf revolt. The story noted that in 1985 Santa was also co-starring in a series of TV specials with everyone from Papa Smurf to Bob Hope and pitching everything from hamburgers to VCRs.

Despite all the sales pitches, 9 out of 10 Iowans told the Iowa Poll they wanted Santa to remain a part of Christmas; 51% favored shortening the season to a Dec. 1 start date; and 59% opposed the idea of declaring the entire week between Christmas and New Year as a holiday. 

Favorite gifts: In 1983, the poll asked Iowans to choose their favorite big-ticket and stocking-stuffer gifts from Santa.

The favorite big-ticket items for men were a home computer (25%), a trip to Las Vegas (21%) and a new tractor (14%, including 45% of farmers). For women: one year of house cleaning (22%), a microwave oven (19%) and a trip to Las Vegas (17%).

Stocking-stuffer favorites for women were dinner out (41%) and tickets to an Iowa basketball game (22%). Men preferred basketball game tickets (41%) and dinner out (36%).

Heaven and hell: In 1977, a Christmas Day story reported on an Iowa Poll heaven-and-hell question. It was a follow-up to an earlier question where 70% of Iowans said they believe in an afterlife, with 96% of believers saying they also believe in heaven and 84% saying they believe in hell.

The follow-up pushed the envelope, asking Iowans if they “know someone else who’s going to hell.” One-third (31%) of Iowans interviewed said they do.

When asked if they personally expect to end up in heaven, 65% said they do, 5% said they expect to end up in hell, and 30% were unsure or had no option.

Santa believers: My favorite Christmas poll story was by my colleague Daniel Pedersen. It appeared in the Register on Dec. 24, 1978, and carried the headline: “An answer to Santa naysayers.”

Iowa adults were asked if they believe in Santa Claus.

A surprising 34% said they do, which amounted to about 660,000 Iowans, Pedersen wrote, adding that 61% “issue a cold and crusty ‘no’” to that question.

Only 20% of young Iowa adults (aged 18-29) were believers, while “46 percent of the retired answered the question in the affirmative.”

“It may be that wisdom truly comes with age,” Pedersen wrote.

I hope it’s also true that, even with this year’s stumble, Santa still believes in the Iowa Poll.