President-elect Donald Trump sues Des Moines Register, Gannett over Iowa election poll
President-elect Donald Trump sued the Des Moines Register and its parent company, Gannett Co. Inc., for publishing a poll before the election that he called “fraud and election interference” for saying he trailed his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, in Iowa.
The lawsuit filed on Monday in Polk County District Court in Iowa seeks unspecified damages under the state's Consumer Fraud Act. The lawsuit seeks "accountability for brazen election interference committed by" the newspaper and pollster J. Ann Selzer over a poll published on Nov. 2 – three days before the voting was completed – that showed Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points in Iowa. Trump won the state by 13 percentage points.
The lawsuit also said the "egregious" polling miss in favor of Democrats came "just days before the most consequential election in memory," and that its results were apparently "leaked" because Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker mentioned the poll's findings during a meeting with Duke University alumni hours before the results were published.
"In my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference," Trump told reporters Monday.
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Register, said the company stands by its reporting and will vigorously defend the First Amendment.
"We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump’s Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer," Anton said in a statement. "We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe this lawsuit is without merit."
Selzer told USA TODAY she has no comment on the lawsuit.
Gannett is also the parent company of USA TODAY.
Trump has sued media companies repeatedly with complaints about coverage of him. Some legal experts say Trump's comments and legal actions risk discouraging coverage of his incoming administration.
A federal judge dismissed Trump's $475 million lawsuit against CNN in July 2023 over the cable network referring to his description of election fraud in 2020 as a "big lie."
ABC News reached a $15 million settlement Dec. 14 with Trump over a George Stephanopoulos question to a House member in March about a lawsuit columnist E. Jean Carroll filed against Trump.
Stephanopoulos mischaracterized Trump as having been found liable for rape in a civil trial. A jury found him liable for sexual assault. Trump is appealing the verdict.
ABC issued a statement of regret about the statement and agreed to contribute the money to Trump’s future presidential library.
Still pending is a $10 billion federal lawsuit against CBS News that Trump filed in October. The lawsuit alleged "election and voter interference" through the editing of an interview with Harris broadcast on "60 Minutes." The editing sought to "deceive, and mislead the public" to favor Harris, the lawsuit said.
CBS called the allegations "false" and said in a network statement "the interview was not doctored."
Trump: lawsuits 'straighten out the press'
During his press conference Monday, Trump said of lawsuits against Gannett and CBS: “It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press."
Trump had previously called for an investigation of Selzer.
“She’s a very good pollster," Trump said Monday. "She knows what she was doing."
Selzer wrote in a November analysis ? before the lawsuit was filed ? that she was uncertain what caused the poll results.
"To cut to the chase, I found nothing to illuminate the miss," she wrote.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump sues Des Moines Register, Gannett over Iowa election poll