Trump sues Iowa pollster, newspaper over poll that showed him losing the state

• Trump's lawyers argue the poll was intentionally manipulated to create a false narrative favoring Harris, which they say deceived both voters and campaign strategists.
• Legal experts suggest that Trump's claims are unlikely to succeed, as consumer fraud laws typically don't apply to news content and that publishing incorrect information is protected under the First Amendment.
• The ongoing legal actions against media outlets by Trump raise concerns about potential chilling effects, where news outlets become more hesitant to report stories critical of Trump to avoid potential legal action, limiting accountability for public figures.

President-elect Donald Trump and his lawyers ramped up their legal campaign against news outlets, filing a lawsuit late Monday against renowned Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register and the newspaper’s parent company, Gannett.

The lawsuit, filed in Polk County District Court, alleges Selzer, her company, The Register and Gannett committed consumer fraud by publishing a poll three days before the Nov. 5 general election that showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by three percentage points in the Republican-led state.

Trump ultimately won Iowa by more than 13 percentage points.

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The lawsuit, filed by Alan Ostergren, an Iowa attorney active in conservative causes and the former Muscatine County attorney, says it “seeks accountability for brazen election interference committed by the Defendants” in favor of Harris.

Selzer announced last month that she would retire her polling operation, a decision she said she had made well before the election.

The pollster, whose sterling reputation took a hit when it missed the Trump-Harris result in Iowa by 16 points, said she has seen nothing in the polling data that should have signaled the results were off.

“If you’re hoping that I had landed on exactly why things went wrong, I have not,” Selzer said Friday during recording of “Iowa Press” at Iowa PBS Studios in Johnston. “It does sort of awaken me in the middle of the night, and I think, ‘Well, maybe I should check this. This is something that would be very odd if it were to happen.’ But we’ve explored everything.”

Selzer declined comment for this story.

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Gannett said in a statement that The Des Moines Register and Selzer have “acknowledged” that the “pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin” of victory and have released the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs and data, as well as “a technical explanation” from Selzer. The newspaper examined the poll’s methods and respondent sample for clues about why its results differed so widely from the actual vote.

“We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe this lawsuit is without merit,” Register spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said in a statement.

What Trump’s alleging

Pundits and pollsters largely reacted with shock and surprise to the polling, which grabbed national and international headlines. Democrats seized on the poll to highlight excitement and enthusiasm among Iowa voters since Harris accepted the presidential nomination after Biden bowed out of the race. Republicans called it a “clear outlier,” and noted other mainstream Iowa polls showed Trump comfortably ahead.

Trump’s lawyers claim the Iowa Poll, and its 16-point deviation from Election Day results, was “no ‘miss’ but rather an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.”

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They claim Selzer and The Register acted with “corrupt intent” and “manipulated” the polling data to create a “false narrative of inevitability for Harris in the final week of the 2024 Presidential Election” to increase enthusiasm among Democrats, compel Republicans to divert campaign resources to areas in which they were ahead and deceive the public “into believing Democrat candidates are performing better than they really are.”

The lawsuit, however, fails to provide evidence that Selzer and The Register did anything improper in reporting the polling results.

Trump and his lawyers accuse Selzer and The Register of violating the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, which prohibits deceptive advertising.

“The Harris Poll was deceptive and misleading, unfair, and the result of concealment, suppression, and omission of material facts about the true respective positions of President Trump and Harris in the Presidential race, all of which were known to Defendants and should have been disclosed to the public,” the lawsuit states.

Trump and his lawyers are seeking unspecified damages. The suit claims Trump, his campaign and other Republicans were forced to “divert enormous campaign and financial resources to Iowa. It also alleges Iowa consumers who paid for subscriptions to The Des Moines Register or otherwise purchased the publication were also ”badly deceived, along with Iowans who contributed to Trump’s campaign.

The incoming president and his lawyers also request an order enjoining Selzer, her company, The Register and Gannett from “publishing or releasing any further deceptive polls designed to influence the outcome of an election” and requiring that they disclose “all data and information upon which they relied in creating, publishing, and releasing” the poll.

Why it matters

University of Iowa law professor Samantha Barbas said the likelihood of Trump prevailing with the consumer fraud claim is extremely low.

Barbas is a legal historian and award-winning author, with a focus on journalism, privacy, defamation and the First Amendment.

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She called Trump’s legal argument "extremely far fetched," and said consumer fraud laws typically do not apply to news content, but rather to protect consumers of goods and services from false advertising.

Fellow UI law professor Cristina Tilley, who teaches tort and constitutional law with an emphasis on defamation and speech injuries, agreed.

“I think that is just an awkward fit,” Tilley said of the legal argument by Trump’s lawyers that news coverage meets the definition of “merchandise” under Iowa law.

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Barbas dismissed Trump’s claims as "creative and ultimately meritless," emphasizing that publishing incorrect information is protected by the First Amendment and does not constitute fraud.

But even if the case gets dismissed or Trump loses, Barbas said Trump’s "frivolous lawsuits" could lead to "a chilling effect,“ where news outlets become more hesitant to report stories critical of Trump to avoid potential legal action, even if the claims are meritless.

“Even if a news organization ultimately prevails, the cost of having to defend a lawsuit and the interruption that brings to a news organization is tremendous,” Barbas said.

ABC News last week agreed to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate assertion on the air that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. Instead, Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse and defaming her.

Trump also is suing CBS News, accusing the network of manipulating an interview with Harris on “60 Minutes.”

Barbas predicts an escalating "legal war on the press by Trump and his allies,“ which could be the beginning of a "very long battle involving the press and freedom of the press going forward."

The incoming president has vowed to continue suing new outlets and social media influencers for defamation.

"It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press," Reuters reported of Trump’s remarks during a news conference Monday at Mar-a-Lago.

PEN America, a literacy nonprofit that advocates for the protection of free expression in the United States, contends “the pattern of constant, weaponized lawsuits isn’t about correcting inaccuracies, but about intimidating journalists into silence and shielding government leaders from accountability.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com