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FIRST ON FOX: President-elect Donald Trump is suing the Des Moines Register and its top pollster J. Ann Selzer for “blatant election interference” and fraud in his latest 2024 presidential poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading in Iowa, despite her eventual victory in the state by more than 13 percentage points, Fox News Digital has learned.
The lawsuit was filed Monday night in Polk County, Iowa, under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and related provisions. He says he seeks “accountability for the blatant election interference committed by ‘Des Moines Register (DMR) and Selzer’ in favor of now-defeated former Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by using a leaked Des Moines/Mediacom Iowa Register and manipulated Survey done by Selzer and S&C and published by DMR and Gannett in the Des Moines Register on November 2, 2024.” The suit also goes against the Des Moines Register’s parent company, Gannett, which also owns other publications, including USA Today.
“Contrary to reality and defying credulity, the defendants Harris Poll was released three days before Election Day and purported to show Harris leading President Trump in Iowa by three points; Ultimately, President Trump won Iowa by more than thirteen points,” the lawsuit states.
Selzer released his latest Des Moines Register-sponsored Iowa poll just three days before the election, on Nov. 2, showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points. That shock poll showed a seven-point swing from Trump to Harris from September, when he had a four-point lead over the vice president in the same poll.
Pollster J. Ann Selzer announced that she would end her election career after President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. (Getty Images/ The Bulwark Podcast via YouTube screenshot)
But Trump ultimately beat Harris in Iowa by more than 13 percentage points.
Selzer’s poll, however, had been hyped by the media before the election, as his polling predictions in previous elections had been historically accurate.
Trump’s lawyers said Selzer’s prediction of Harris’ three-point lead in “deep red Iowa was not fact, it was election-interfering fiction.”
Trump’s lawyers said Selzer “had prided himself on a widespread reputation for accuracy despite several far less publicized egregious voting failures in favor of Democrats” and said he would “lead the public to believe it was just a coincidence that a of her worst poll failures. Her run came just days before the most consequential election in living memory, leaked and went against the Republican nominee.”
SHOCK POLL HAS HARRIS LEADING TRUMP IN IOWA WITH 3-POINT SWITCH FOR VICE PRESIDENT IN RED STATE
“The Harris poll was not a ‘fault,’ but an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election,” the lawsuit states, adding that “the defendants and their associates in the Democratic Party expected that the Harris poll created 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 President Trump in both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote, an overwhelming mandate for his America First principles and the consignation of the radical socialist agenda to the dustbin of history”.
The lawsuit notes that Selzer, after more than 35 years in the industry, “retired in disgrace from the polls less than two weeks after this embarrassing defeat.”
Trump’s lawyers argued that “left-wing pollsters have attempted to influence election results through rigged polls that have unacceptable error rates and are not based on widely accepted polling methodologies.”
Former Pollster ANN SELZER RESPONDS TO CRITICISMS OF IOWA POLL: ‘I’M BEING ACCUSED OF A CRIME’
“While Selzer is not the only pollster to have engaged in this corrupt practice, he had an enormous platform and following and thus a significant and impactful opportunity to deceive voters,” the lawsuit states. “As Selzer knows, this kind of manipulation creates a narrative of inevitability for Democratic candidates, increases enthusiasm among Democrats, forces Republicans to divert campaign time and money to areas in which they are ahead and fool the public into believing that the Democratic candidates are acting better than they really are.”
The suit claims that “Democrats’ need for bogus polls was even more acute than usual in the 2024 election, given Harris’s many fatal weaknesses as a candidate and his lack of appeal in critical swathes of the traditional democratic base”.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP/Evan Vucci)
Trump’s lawyers are suing under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, alleging that the defendants “engaged in an ‘unfair act or practice’ because the publication and publication of the Harris poll” caused damages substantial and unavoidable to consumers who were not compensated by any consumer or competitive.” benefits that the practice produced.”
They also said consumers were “badly misled and misled as to the actual position of the respective candidates in the Iowa presidential race.”
“Furthermore, President Trump, the Trump 2024 campaign and other Republicans were forced to divert enormous financial and campaign resources to Iowa based on the misleading Harris Poll,” the lawsuit states, adding that consumers of the registry of Des Moines and Iowans who contributed to Trump’s 2024 campaign were “similarly duped.”
Trump Seeks Actual Damages After Case Trial; statutory damages three times actual damages suffered; an order enjoining the defendants from “ongoing misleading and deceptive acts and practices related to the Harris survey and requiring the defendants to disclose all information upon which they relied in engaging in the deceptive and misleading acts related to the Harris survey; attorneys’ fees and costs associated with the case and any other relief the court deems just and appropriate.
Monday night’s lawsuit comes just hours after the president-elect said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago that he planned to sue the Des Moines and Selzer registry.
The lawsuit comes days after ABC News and its main anchor George Stephanopoulos reached a settlement with Trump in their defamation lawsuit, which resulted in the network paying the president-elect $15 million.
The settlement was filed publicly on Saturday, revealing the agreement to avoid a costly trial. According to the settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for the plaintiff, as established in the past by presidents of the United States of America.” .
In addition, the network will pay $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees.
Stephanopoulos and ABC News also had to issue statements of “regret” as an editor’s note at the end of a March 10, 2024, online articleabout comments made earlier this year that prompted Trump to file the defamation suit. The note reads: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements about President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”
George Stephanopoulos speaks during ABC’s “This Week.” (ABC/Paula Lobo via Getty Images)
ABC News said the network was “pleased” to have concluded the case.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit under the terms of the court filing,” an ABC News spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The Des Moines Register lawsuit and the ABC News settlement come after a a series of legal victories for Trump and his legal team, coordinated by senior legal adviser Boris Epshteyn.
Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan recently granted special counsel Jack Smith’s recent request to dismiss his case against Trump related to the 2020 election. Smith also launched his appeal in the classified records case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed the charges entirely in July, ruling that he was illegally appointed as a special counsel.
In New York v. Trump, Judge Juan Merchan granted Trump’s request to file a motion to dismiss charges stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case and removed the president-elect’s sentencing date from the programming
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Merchan on Monday night rejected Trump’s July request to overturn the guilty verdict based on presidential immunity. Merchan has yet to comment on Trump’s official motion to dismiss the charges altogether.
Trump is also suing CBS News for $10 billion in damages, claiming the network engaged in “deceptive conduct” for the purpose of election interference in its October interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
