Donald Trump has sued a pollster and newspaper over survey results published days before the US election showing him behind in Iowa — a state he ultimately won by a landslide.
The president-elect’s highly unusual complaint — criticized by a free speech group as an attempt to stifle the media — was filed Monday evening in the central US state. It names the famed pollster Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register newspaper and its parent company Gannett as defendants.
The Republican billionaire “seeks accountability for brazen election interference committed by the Defendants in favor of now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris,” his lawyers argued in court documents seen by AFP.
Selzer’s poll, released in the final weekend of campaigning before the November 5 vote, showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three points.
The poll was a shock given Trump’s easy victories there in 2016 and 2020, and boosted Democratic …