The lawsuit comes just days after ABC agreed to pay $15 million toward a Trump presidential library in order to settle a defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos for inaccurately saying Trump had been found civilly liable for rape.
The Des Moines survey, done by since-retired pollster J. Ann Selzer, was considered shocking for indicating that an earlier Trump lead in the Republican-leaning midwestern state had been erased. In the actual election, Trump won Iowa by more than 13 percentage points.
“There was a perfectly good reason nobody saw this coming: because a three-point lead for Harris in deep-red Iowa was not reality,” the lawsuit said. “It was election-interfering fiction.”
The poll increased enthusiasm among Democrats, compelled Republicans to divert campaign time and money to areas in which they were ahead, and deceived the public into thinking Democrats were doing better than they actually were, Trump charged.
The Register's parent Gannett Co. on Tuesday dismissed the lawsuit as meritless and said it would vigorously defend its First Amendment rights.
