Donald Trump has sued a pollster and newspaper over survey results published days before the US election showing him behind in Iowa — a state he ultimately won by a landslide.
The president-elect’s highly unusual complaint — criticized by a free speech group as an attempt to stifle the media — was filed Monday evening in the central US state. It names the famed pollster Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register newspaper and its parent company Gannett as defendants.
The Republican billionaire “seeks accountability for brazen election interference committed by the Defendants in favor of now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris,” his lawyers argued in court documents seen by AFP.
Selzer’s poll, released in the final weekend of campaigning before the November 5 vote, showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three points.
The poll was a shock given Trump’s easy victories there in 2016 and 2020, and boosted Democratic hopes that other surveys showing an exceedingly tight race were actually overestimating the Republican’s support.
Trump went on to win Iowa by 13 points, dealing a devastating blow to Selzer’s reputation and prompting claims by Trump of alleged wrongdoing.
His lawsuit claims that the poll was “just a piece of political theater concocted by an individual — Selzer,” who he argues “should have known better than to poison the electorate with a poll that was nothing more than a work of fantasy.”
“In my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference,” he told a press conference on Monday.
“She’s a very good pollster. She knows what she was doing,” he claimed.
– ‘Without merit’ –
When contacted by AFP on Tuesday, Selzer’s office declined to comment.
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Register, said the newspaper had already acknowledged the poll “did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump’s Election Day victory in Iowa.”
She noted that they had previously released weighted and unweighted data behind the poll, among other information, and that Selzer had published a “technical explanation.”
“We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe this lawsuit is without merit,” Anton said.
The Knight First Amendment Institute, a group at Columbia University dedicated to promoting free speech rights, slammed the lawsuit as “part of a larger effort by President-elect Trump to prevent the press from reporting on issues of vital public interest.”
“This lawsuit is a non-starter under the First Amendment,” said Anna Diakun, a Knight Institute staff attorney.
“The court should dismiss it quickly,” she said in a statement.
Rick Hasen, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, similarly wrote on his Election Law blog that he does not “expect this lawsuit to go anywhere” due to US free speech protections.
Trump has made attacks on the media a hallmark of his political identity since his rise to power, recently describing the press as “bloodsuckers” and “corrupt.”
On Monday, he said he planned to launch more proceedings against media outlets, including CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” which he accused of manipulating an interview with Harris to support her candidacy.
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