The nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) announced on January 7 that it will defend longtime Iowa Poll director J. Ann Selzer at no charge in the lawsuit Donald Trump filed last month. Trump sued Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over the final pre-election Iowa Poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 points. The Republican later carried Iowa by a 13-point margin.

FIRE’s chief counsel Bob Corn-Revere said in a news release, “Punishing someone for their political prediction is about as unconstitutional as it gets,” adding, “This is America. No one should be afraid to predict the outcome of an election. Whether it’s from a pollster, or you, or me, such political expression is fully and unequivocally protected by the First Amendment.”

Lyle Muller is a board member of the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Iowa High School Press Association, a trustee of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, former executive director/editor of the Iowa Center for Public Journalism that became part of the Midwest Center, former editor of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, and a recipient of the Iowa Newspaper Association’s Distinguished Service Award. In retirement, he is the professional adviser for Grinnell College’s Scarlet & Black newspaper. This article first appeared on his Substack newsletter.

So, Donald Trump is suing The Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer for consumer fraud, which he claims was willful election interference. Bring it on, I would like to say—but I don’t run The Register and my subscription does not entitle me to make such a challenge. I would be doing Selzer no favors, either. 

It would be like pushing the weakest sucker in your group of eighth-grade buddies to the front of the group after mouthing off to a bully. And, make no mistake, a bully is involved in this lawsuit. The kind you thought you left behind in eighth grade.

President-elect Donald Trump followed through this week with his threat to sue pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over the final pre-election Iowa Poll, which showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 47 percent to 44 percent.

Many others have pointed out that Trump’s lawsuit is part of his broader “revenge tour” and “war on journalism.” In Greg Sargent’s words, the case is “putting people in the media and polling on notice that they will face real legal harassment if they anger or criticize Trump.” The president-elect admitted during a December 16 press conference that he will use lawsuits to influence news coverage: “I think you have to do it, because they’re very dishonest. We need a great media, we need a fair media.”

This post will focus on the legal, factual, and logical problems with the court filing.

Ann Selzer is stepping back from polling elections after conducting the Iowa Poll for the Des Moines Register for the last 27 years, she announced on November 17.

Top Iowa Republicans reacted by accusing Selzer of “skewing” her numbers or publishing “fake news polling”—all because her final Iowa Poll was way off the mark.

The attacks on Selzer—not from MAGA randos, but from the heart of the GOP establishment—reflect a broader Republican strategy to discredit mainstream media outlets like the Des Moines Register. They also validate unhinged behavior like President-elect Donald Trump’s call for Selzer to be criminally investigated.

When Mark Blumenthal called the Iowa caucuses “the pollster’s nightmare,” he could not have imagined the disaster that unfolded on February 1, as the Des Moines Register and CNN prepared to unveil the findings of Selzer & Co’s final Iowa poll before the 2020 caucuses.