Escalating his legal campaign against media outlets

Trump sues Des Moines Register and top pollster over final Iowa survey

By Brian Stelter, Katelyn Polantz, Hadas Gold and Paula Reid

President-elect Donald Trump is escalating his legal campaign against media outlets by suing renowned pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register newspaper and its parent company Gannett.

Unlike many of Trump’s legal actions against the press, which often allege defamation, this case alleges violations of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deception when advertising or selling merchandise.

While the nontraditional claims are unlikely to succeed in court, Trump is using the lawsuit to wage a broadside against what he perceives as left-wing media, mainstream press coverage of elections and the role of pollsters during campaigns. Though he won the 2024 election, Trump alleges the news coverage of Selzer’s poll — published days before the election showing Kamala Harris with a surprising lead in Iowa that didn’t materialize in the vote — was intended to artificially help Democrats during the campaign.

Media experts warned the lawsuit could have a further chilling effect not just on news reporting, but also on political polling. Selzer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.

The Des Moines Register said in a statement that the newspaper and Selzer had “acknowledged” that the “pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin” of victory and have released the poll’s full data and details, as well as “a technical explanation” from Selzer.

“We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe this lawsuit is without merit,” said Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for the newspaper’s parent company, Gannett

The case comes on the heels of Trump winning a $16 million payout from ABC News in a defamation case that he and the news organization settled this weekend. Trump and his allies also continue to rail against news outlets, threaten them, and pursue other court cases against large outlets and a book publisher.

The case reflects Trump’s anger at the final Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll of the 2024 election season. It was conducted at the end of October by Selzer’s firm, called Selzer & Co., and was based on telephone interviews with 808 Iowa likely voters. The poll found Vice President Kamala Harris with 47% support and Trump with 44%, a shocking result since Trump was universally expected to win the state.

And indeed, he did – by a margin of 13 points – which is key to Trump’s argument that Selzer committed “election interference.”

“Defendants and their cohorts in the Democrat Party 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 President Trump in both the Electoral College and the Popular Vote, an overwhelming mandate for his America First principles, and the consignment of the radical socialist agenda to the dustbin of history,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

What the lawsuit lacks, however, is any evidence that Selzer did anything improper in reporting her poll results.

“I don’t expect this lawsuit to go anywhere,” election law expert Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA School of Law, wrote upon learning of the case Monday night.

But even if the case gets thrown out or Trump loses, the legal action demands time and financial resources to fight, including lawyer’s fees, time preparing responses, court hearings and possibly even deposition and discovery.

Experts have said Trump is taking a page out of an authoritarian playbook employed by strongmen around the world, who have gone after the news media for a range of supposed crimes often unrelated to journalism.

Joel Simon, director of the CUNY Journalism Protection Initiative, told CNN he “would not have imagined… that some of these same tactics would be deployed in the United States.”

“I would also be concerned about the arbitrary, petty, and vindictive nature of these legal actions that President-elect Trump is pursuing,” Simon added. “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.”