Trump sues Des Moines Register newspaper, alleging 'election interference' | Media News

The US president-elect's case comes days after he reached a defamation agreement with ABC News.

United States President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit accusing a newspaper and a polling firm of engaging in “frivolous election interference” by publishing a pre-election poll that undermined his popularity.

The lawsuit filed late Monday accuses the Des Moines Register newspaper, parent company Gannett and researcher Ann Selzer of intentionally understating Trump's support in polls that showed him trailing Democratic incumbent Kamala Harris.

The Nov. 2 poll, which showed Harris ahead by three percentage points in Iowa, generated widespread attention as Trump easily carried the midwestern state in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Trump won Iowa in last month's presidential election by more than thirteen percent.

“Selzer's 'miss' voting was not a freak accident — it was intentional,” the lawsuit filed in Iowa's Polk County said. “As President Trump observed: 'He knew exactly what he was doing.'

The lawsuit, which bases its claims on violations of Iowa's consumer fraud statute, seeks treble damages as determined by the jury.

Lark-Marie Anton, spokeswoman for the Des Moines Register, said the newspaper stands by its reporting and considers the lawsuit to be baseless.

“We agreed that the Selzer/Des Moines Register of Pre-Election Polls did not show the margin of President Trump's Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing complete polling demographics, separate tabulations, weighted and unweighted data, and technicalities. Comment from pollster Ann Selzer, ” said Anton.

Selzer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but said in an interview with PBS last week that he was confused as to why anyone would think he designed the poll to produce a certain result.

Trump's lawsuit comes just days after ABC News agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos' false claim that he had been convicted of rape.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a human rights organization, condemned the case as a “direct attack” on the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech.

“When newspapers and polling companies are accused of 'deception' because they publish news and research results that politicians don't like, all media rights are threatened. Doing wrong voting is not interference in elections or fraud,” said the group.

Trump, who is also suing CBS News over an interview with Harris that he says was manipulated, faces legal challenges to winning his lawsuits because of US speech protections, which rank among the strongest in the world.

Still, suits can create difficulties for news organizations by exposing potentially embarrassing internal communications and putting reporters and executives on the hook for money.