President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its pollster for alleged election interference following the publication of a pre-election poll that showed Democrat Kamala Harris with a surprising three-percentage-point lead in Iowa.
The big picture: The lawsuit accuses retired pollster J. Ann Selzer of brazen election interference and contends that the poll significantly misrepresented the actual support for Harris in Iowa.
- The poll results, which showed a lead for Harris in the typically Republican-leaning state of Iowa, were dismissed as “election-interfering fiction” by Trump, as the actual election saw him win Iowa by over 13 percentage points.
- Trump’s lawsuit alleges that the inaccurate poll influenced campaign strategies by increasing enthusiasm among Democrats, diverting Republican time and money to areas where they were behind, and deceiving the public about the true state of the race.
Zoom in: The lawsuit was filed in Polk County district court in Iowa and seeks to invoke Iowa consumer fraud law, aiming for a trial jury to award triple the amount of determined actual damages.
- The lawsuit’s implications go beyond Iowa, as Trump explicitly expressed a desire for it to have a deterrent effect on any “radicals” creating polls with corrupt intent to skew election results in favor of Democrats.
What they’re saying: Gannett, the parent company of the Des Moines Register, responded to the lawsuit by stating its intention to vigorously defend its First Amendment rights and dismissing the legal action as meritless.
- The Des Moines Register acknowledged that the pre-election poll did not reflect Trump’s ultimate margin of victory and offered a technical explanation but maintained the integrity of their reporting.
