President-elect Donald Trump has followed through on his vow to sue pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register for their highly inaccurate polling, which showed Kamala Harris leading by three points heading into Election Day. While inaccurate polling isn’t illegal—it’s become a common feature in recent elections—Trump argues that Selzer and the Register deliberately manipulated the numbers to influence the election in Harris’s favor.
Here’s how RedState’s Bonchie covered the dubious results from the “gold standard” pollster just before the election:
To be frank, I don’t think Selzer’s final offering in Iowa is anywhere close to reality, and there’s empirical data to support that viewpoint. For example, the poll has Harris leading with seniors by 19 points. Trump won seniors there by nine points in 2020. The idea that Trump has lost 28 points among seniors in a relatively red state just doesn’t compute.Â
As Bonchie pointed out, “Selzer had Trump up by 14 points just a few months ago. Are we really supposed to believe that Iowa, a red state, shifted 17 points toward the Democrat nominee? I mean, come on.” It turns out Selzer should have stuck with her original numbers, as Trump ended up winning Iowa by 13 points.
Selzer’s mistake was so glaring that she retired just weeks after the election, admitting, “Would I have liked to make this announcement after a final poll aligned with Election Day results? Of course. It’s ironic that it’s just the opposite.”
If you recall, Selzer and the Register released this shocking poll just as Kamala Harris was struggling in most other polls. What they did was give the left a glimmer of hope, suggesting that if Harris was leading in Iowa, perhaps all the other polling showing her as a weak candidate was wrong. This led to expectations of a landslide victory, with Harris seemingly on her way to the White House.
The likes of Rachel Maddow and Jen Psaki seized on this poll in the final weekend of the election, telling left-leaning audiences that the election was in the bag, and all they needed to do was vote. In the words of RedState’s Sister Toldjah, “Cue the sad trombones.”
Team Trump, however, believes there was more than just flawed polling at play in Iowa. They argue that Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register’s actions amount to “brazen election interference” designed to benefit “now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris.”
Here are more details on the lawsuit:
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.
Following his significant victory over ABC News, President-elect Trump stated at a Monday press conference that he would keep pursuing legal action against news outlets and social media figures who spread falsehoods about him. He also had strong words for Ann Selzer and her inaccurate polling, including a particularly sharp observation:
“In my opinion it was fraud and it was election interference. You know, she’s gotten me right always, she’s a very good pollster. She knew what she was doing.”
“She knew what she was doing.” That quote is crucial, as it highlights Selzer’s potential motivation; with retirement on the horizon, could she have decided to “take one for the team” and release a misleading poll to influence the election? It doesn’t seem out of the question, and it certainly resembles an attempt to sway the election.
It will be fascinating to watch how this lawsuit progresses. It’s possible that ABC News settled with Trump to avoid having to provide discovery evidence; if so, what were they trying to conceal? If Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register follow a similar path, it will raise even more questions about the media’s role in attempting to influence the election.
