US President-elect Donald Trump has sued Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannett, and pollster J Ann Selzer over a pre-election poll. The poll, published shortly before the election, showed Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in Iowa by three points. However, Trump won Iowa by a significant margin.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Polk County, Iowa, alleges “brazen election interference” and a violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deceptive practices in sales or advertising.
Trump previewed the lawsuit during a Monday news conference in Florida, saying, “I have to do it. We have to straighten out the press.”
Des Moines survey
The Des Moines survey, carried out by the recently retired pollster J Ann Selzer, was seen as unexpected, as it revealed that Trump’s previous lead in the Republican-leaning state of Iowa had disappeared. In the actual election, Trump won Iowa by more than 13 percentage points.
“There was a perfectly good reason nobody saw this coming: because a three-point lead for Harris in deep-red Iowa was not reality,” the lawsuit said. “It was election-interfering fiction.”
Trump argued that the poll boosted enthusiasm among Democrats, forced Republicans to divert campaign time and resources to areas where they were already ahead, and misled the public into believing Democrats were performing better than they truly were.
Des Moines register’s reaction to the lawsuit
The Register, however, has defended its reporting. “We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe a lawsuit would be without merit,” Lark-Marie Anton, Des Moines Register spokeswoman, said.
Anton said that the newspaper admitted the pre-election poll did not accurately reflect the results and has since published the full data and a technical explanation of the poll. Anton said they will “vigorously defend” their “First Amendment rights.”
Selzer has not yet commented on the lawsuit, but in an interview with PBS in Iowa last week, she said, “It’s not my ethic” to design a poll to produce a particular outcome. She expressed confusion over what motivation people might believe she had.
“To suggest without a single shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, I was being paid by somebody, it’s all just kind of, it’s hard to pay too much attention to it except that they are accusing me of a crime,” she said.
Previous lawsuits
This lawsuit follows a pattern of legal actions by Trump against media outlets. He recently settled a defamation case with ABC News for $15 million.
A professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, Samantha Barbas, commented on Trump’s legal strategy, saying, as quoted by New York Times, “It’s clear that Trump is waging war on the press. Trump and his lawyers are going to use any legal claim that they think has a chance of sticking. They’ll cast a wide net to carry out this vendetta.” Barbas also noted the lawsuits “are not so much geared toward winning as much as threatening.”
Another lawsuit filed by Trump against CBS News in October also alleges deceptive trade practices related to an interview with Harris. Trump has frequently criticized the press and stated his desire for “fair” treatment.