Donald Trump kicked off the week by declaring he wants to sue more newspapers, and on Monday night filed a civil lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and famed Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer.
The lawsuit accuses Selzer, her polling company, the Register, and its parent company Gannett of engaging in “brazen election interference” over the publication of a poll shortly before November’s election which showed Trump lagging behind Harris by three points in the Hawkeye State. The pre-election poll from Selzer — a celebrated pollster who had accurately predicted Iowa’s outcomes in every presidential election since 2008 — fueled optimism among Democrats in the days before the election.
Selzer’s prediction was wrong. Trump ultimately won Iowa by 14 percentage points. His double digit victory in the state, far outside Selzer’s predicted margin of error, dealt a significant blow to her data model and stirred the ire of Trump, who in November called for an investigation into the pollster and the Register.
“I am mystified about what motivation anybody thinks I had, and would act on in such a public poll. I don’t understand it. And the allegations I take very seriously. They’re saying that this was election interference, which is a crime,” Selzer told PBS earlier this month. “To suggest without a single shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, I was being paid by somebody — it’s all just kind of […] it’s hard to pay too much attention to it except that they are accusing me of a crime.”
During a press conference on Monday, Trump told reporters that he planned to sue Selzer and her related publications.
“In my opinion, it was fraud and it was election interference,” Trump said. “We’ll probably be filing a major lawsuit against them today or tomorrow.”
“I’m gonna be bringing one against the people in Iowa, their newspaper, which had a very, very good pollster, who got me right all the time. And then just before the election, she said I was gonna lose by three or four points,” he elaborated, adding that his suit against the pollster was just one of several he was considering.
Conducting an incorrect poll is not a crime, but Trump has made clear he plans to exploit every legal avenue — charted and uncharted — to exact retribution against press he considers unfriendly to his political project. Earlier this week, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit Trump brought against them over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ using the word “rape” to describe Trump civil liability for sexually abusing and defaming author E. Jean Carroll. The network agreed to shell out $15 million to Trump’s presidential library to avoid an in-court battle.
Emboldened, Trump is now trying his hand in Iowa, a state that lacks laws protecting entities from Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) lawsuits. The Register told Puck News on Monday they stand by their reporting and consider the lawsuit to be “without merit,” but then again Trump’s aim may not necessarily be victory, but to chill future criticism of his incoming administration.
