Trump sues Des Moines Register, top pollster for 'brazen election interference,' fraud over Harris poll

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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 "brazen election interference" and fraud over its final 2024 presidential poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa, despite his ultimate 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. It says it seeks "accountability for brazen election interference committed by" the Des Moines Register (DMR) and Selzer "in favor of now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris through use of a leaked and manipulated Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll conducted by Selzer and S&C and published by DMR and Gannett in the Des Moines Register on Nov. 2, 2024." The lawsuit is also against the parent company of the Des Moines Register, Gannett, which also owns other publications, including USA Today.

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"Contrary to reality and defying credulity, defendants’ Harris Poll was published three days before Election Day and purported to show Harris leading President Trump in Iowa by three points; President Trump ultimately won Iowa by over thirteen points," the lawsuit states. 

Selzer released her final Des Moines Register-sponsored poll of Iowa 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 shift 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 she was ending her career of election polling after President-elect Donald Trump's win. (Getty Images/ The Bulwark Podcast via YouTube screenshot)

But Trump ultimately beat Harris in Iowa by more than 13 percentage points. 

Selzer’s poll, though, had been hyped up by the media ahead of the elections, as her polling predictions in previous elections had been historically accurate. 

Trump attorneys said Selzer’s prediction of Harris’ three point lead in "deep-red Iowa was not reality, it was election-interfering fiction." 

Trump attorneys said Selzer had "prided herself on a mainstream reputation for accuracy despite several far less publicized egregious polling misses in favor of Democrats" and said she "would have the public believe it was merely a coincidence that one of the worst polling misses of her career came just days before the most consequential election in memory, was leaked and happened to go against the Republican candidate." 

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"The Harris Poll was no ‘miss’ but rather an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election," the lawsuit states, adding that "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." 

The lawsuit notes that Selzer, after more than 35 years in the industry, "retired in disgrace from polling less than two weeks after this embarrassing rout." 

Trump lawyers argued that "left-wing pollsters have attempted to influence electoral outcomes through manipulated polls that have unacceptable error rates and are not grounded in widely accepted polling methodologies." 

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"While Selzer is not the only pollster to engage in this corrupt practice, she had a huge platform and following and, thus, a significant and impactful opportunity to deceive voters," the lawsuit states. "As Selzer knows, this type of manipulation creates a narrative of inevitability for Democrat candidates, increases enthusiasm among Democrats, compels Republicans to divert campaign time and money to areas in which they are ahead, and deceives the public into believing that Democrat candidates are performing better than they really are." 

The lawsuit states that Democrats’ "need for fake polling was even more acute than usual in the 2024 Election, given Harris’s many fatal weaknesses as a candidate and lack of appeal to critical swaths of the traditional Democrat base." 

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla.  (AP/Evan Vucci)

Trump attorneys are suing under the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act, alleging that defendants "engaged in an ‘unfair act or practice’ because the publication and release of the Harris Poll ‘caused substantial, unavoidable injury to consumers that was not outweighed by any consumer or competitive benefits which the practice produced.’" 

They also said consumers were "badly deceived and misled as to the actual position of the respective candidates in the Iowa Presidential race." 

"Moreover, President Trump, the Trump 2024 Campaign, and other Republicans were forced to divert enormous campaign and financial resources to Iowa based on the deceptive Harris Poll," the lawsuit states, adding that consumers of the Des Moines Register and Iowans who contributed to Trump’s 2024 campaign were "similarly deceived." 

Trump is demanding actual damages upon trial of the case; statutory damages three times the actual damages suffered; an order enjoining defendants’ "ongoing deceptive and misleading acts and practices relating to the Harris Poll and compelling defendants to disclose all information upon which they relied to engage in the deceptive and misleading acts relating to the Harris Poll; attorneys’ fees and costs associated with the case; and any other relief as deemed just and proper by the court. 

The lawsuit Monday night comes just hours after the president-elect said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago that he planned to sue the Des Moines Register and Selzer. 

The lawsuit comes days after ABC News and its top anchor George Stephanopoulos reached a settlement with Trump in his defamation suit, resulting in the network paying the president-elect $15 million. 

The settlement was publicly filed 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 Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past." 

Additionally, 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 bottom of a March 10, 2024, online article, about comments made earlier this year that prompted Trump to file the defamation lawsuit. The note reads, "ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding 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 on the terms in the court filing," an ABC News spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The Des Moines Register lawsuit and the ABC News settlement come after a string 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 tossed his appeal in the classified records case on Monday after a federal judge dismissed the charges altogether in July, ruling that he was unlawfully appointed as special counsel.

In New York v. Trump, Judge Juan Merchan granted Trump’s request to file a motion to dismiss the charges stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case and removed the sentencing date for the president-elect from the schedule. 

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Merchan on Monday night rejected Trump’s July request to overturn the guilty verdict based on presidential immunity. Merchan has not yet ruled on Trump’s official motion to dismiss the charges altogether. 

Trump is also suing CBS News for $10 billion in damages, stating the network practiced "deceptive conduct" for the purpose of election interference in its interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris.