Inset: The Des Moines Register’s coverage of the J. Ann Selzer poll named in Donald Trump’s lawsuit (Iowa Judicial Branch). Background: Donald Trump (NBC News).
Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register newspaper over reporting that was done ahead of the 2024 election, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris up by three points just days before voting started — with the president-elect calling it a “false narrative of inevitability” after he managed to win the Hawkeye State by 13 points.
“Contrary to reality and defying credulity, Defendants’ Harris Poll was published three days before Election Day and purported to show Harris leading President Trump in Iowa,” Trump’s suit states, which was filed in Iowa state court in Polk County on Monday night and obtained by Law&Crime.
“Before this astonishing sixteen-point polling miss, Selzer brazenly claimed: ‘It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming … Harris has clearly leaped into a leading position,’” the complaint alleges. “However, as Selzer well knew, there was a perfectly good reason nobody ‘saw this coming’: because a three-point lead for Harris in deep-red Iowa was not reality, it was election-interfering fiction.”
The suit marks Trump’s latest attempt to go after the media in court following repeated threats and filings of lawsuits against the press in recent months and years. While he points out that Selzer was wrong in her poll prediction, legal experts say his complaint holds no true evidence of any wrongdoing.
“I don’t expect this lawsuit to go anywhere,” wrote Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at UCLA School of Law, in a blog post on Monday night.
Joel Simon, director of the CUNY Journalism Protection Initiative, told CNN that even if the suit stalls out, it’ll be a financial burden for both Selzer and the Des Moines Register, along with its parent company Gannett, which is also named in the complaint.
“I would also be concerned about the arbitrary, petty, and vindictive nature of these legal actions that president-elect Trump is pursuing,” Simon said. “The possibility of legal victory is slim because under the ‘actual malice’ standard reporting done in good faith is protected in the US. But for a smaller or less-resourced news organization, mounting a legal defense can be a serious challenge.”
Trump’s complaint accuses Selzer and the Des Moines Register of being in cahoots with “cohorts in the Democrat Party” who “hoped that the Harris Poll would create a false narrative of inevitability for Harris in the final week of the 2024 Presidential Election.”
Instead, “the November 5 Election was a monumental victory” for the president-elect, the lawsuit states.
“Selzer, after over 35 years in the industry, retired in disgrace from polling less than two weeks after this embarrassing rout,” Trump’s complaint says, in reference to her announcement to retire in mid-November. Selzer said that her decision predated the poll in question.
The Des Moines Register and Gannett have sent out a statement in response to Trump’s suit, saying Selzer has “acknowledged” that the “pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin” of victory and have since released its full data and details, along with “a technical explanation” from Selzer.
“We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe this lawsuit is without merit,” said Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton.
