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DES MOINES, Iowa (CN) — President-elect Donald Trump filed suit in state court in Iowa late Monday night accusing Des Moines Register pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register of consumer fraud for Selzer’s poll published three days ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by three points. Trump ended up beating Harris in Iowa by more than 13 points.
The former president says in his complaint filed in Polk County District Court that the Selzer Poll “falsely showed Harris leading President Trump in Iowa with just three days to go, which suggested major, in reality nonexistent, momentum for Harris nationwide.” Trump says Selzer intentionally “doctored” the poll to affect the outcome of the election.
“In truth, the Harris Poll,” Trump argues, “was just a piece of political theater concocted by an individual – Selzer – who, as a supposedly legendary pollster with the power to shape public perception of elections, should have known better than to poison the electorate with a poll that was nothing more than a work of fantasy.”
Trump claims the poll published in the Register was intended to affect the outcome of the election. “As Selzer knows,” he argues, “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.”
Trump also asserts in his complaint that the Register’s poll was leaked by the defendants to Democrat operatives earlier in the day on Nov. 2, hours before the Register article appeared.
In a statement released Tuesday, Des Moines Register spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said, “We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump’s Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer.”
The statement added that “We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe this lawsuit is without merit.”
Trump claims Selzer and the Register violated Iowa’s consumer fraud statute, which states in part: “A person shall not engage in a practice or act the person knows or reasonably should know is an unfair practice, deception, fraud, false pretense, or false promise, or the misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, or omission of a material fact, with intent that others rely upon the unfair practice, deception, fraud, false pretense, false promise, misrepresentation, concealment, suppression, or omission in connection with the advertisement, sale, or lease of consumer merchandise . . . .”
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