Donald Trump Sues Des Moines Register Over Poll That Showed Him Trailing Kamala Harris

variety.com:

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer President-elect Donald Trump has made good on his threat to sue the Des Moines Register over a poll that showed him trailing Kamala Harris.

In a complaint filed Monday night in Iowa, Trump accused pollster Ann Selzer of deliberately releasing a fake poll for the purpose of manufacturing support for Harris.

The Selzer poll showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three points. Three days later, Trump won the state by 13 points. “Pollsters such as Selzer… and news organizations such as DMR and Gannett, are responsible for accurately representing the truth of events, not distorting polls to try and falsely make their preferred candidate appear to be in the lead,” the lawsuit states. “Due to Defendants’ actions, the public could not discern who was truly leading in the Iowa Presidential race and, as a result, were, or could have been, badly deceived into thinking that Harris was leading the race.” In response, Des Moines Register spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton said the suit is “without merit.” “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,” Anton said. “We stand by our reporting on the matter and will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights.” During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Trump said he would file a “major lawsuit” against the newspaper. “In my opinion it was fraud and it was election interference,” he said. “She’s a very good pollster.