President-elect Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday against The Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer over a poll released shortly before Election Day that showed Vice President Harris with a significant lead in Iowa.
The poll indicated Harris was ahead of Trump by 3 points just days before Trump ultimately secured a decisive 14-point victory in the state, winning re-election to the White House.
The lawsuit, submitted in Polk County’s Iowa state court, claims that both the pollster and the media outlet violated Iowa’s consumer protection laws by allegedly engaging in deceptive practices.
“Selzer’s polling failure wasn’t just a coincidence — it was deliberate,” the lawsuit argues.
Trump’s legal team is seeking unspecified financial compensation and a court order preventing Selzer’s team from releasing what they describe as “misleading polls” in the future. The suit also demands that the pollster disclose all data and methods used to produce the survey in question.
Fox News Digital was the first to report on the lawsuit.
“For years, left-leaning pollsters have tried to sway elections with manipulated surveys that produce unacceptable inaccuracies and fail to follow sound polling practices,” the complaint states.
“Although Selzer isn’t the only pollster to engage in this dishonest behavior, her reach and credibility gave her an outsized ability to mislead the public,” it adds.
Trump has increasingly pursued legal battles with media entities, previously filing lawsuits against networks like ABC and CBS, journalist Bob Woodward, and the Pulitzer Prize Board.
At a Monday press conference, Trump previewed the Iowa lawsuit when discussing ABC News’s recent $15 million defamation settlement in a separate case he brought earlier this year.
“In my view, it was outright fraud and a form of election interference,” Trump said of the Iowa poll. The lawsuit names Selzer, her company, The Des Moines Register, and Gannett, the paper’s parent company, as defendants.
Selzer declined to provide any comment.
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for Gannett, defended the poll and its transparency.
“We openly acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register poll did not align with President Trump’s eventual victory margin in Iowa by publishing the survey’s full demographics, weighted and unweighted data, crosstabs, and an in-depth technical explanation from Ann Selzer,” Anton stated.
“We stand firmly behind our reporting and believe this lawsuit lacks any merit,” she concluded.