‘Unlawful gamesmanship’: Court clears path for Trump lawsuit over ‘brazen election interference’ by famous media poll
Media corporations across America long have opposed, privately and publicly, President Donald Trump. Negative stories? Every day. Reports on his successes? A rarity.
But now a federal appeals court has cleared the path for a lawsuit brought by Trump over a last-minute polling before the 2024 election that exhibited a lot of suspicious factors, and it literally tried to give a huge boost to failed Democrat nominee Kamala Harris.
The polling was done by J. Ann Selzer for The Des Moines Register, and claimed Harris held a three-point edge over Trump in Iowa, 47% to 44%.
It was pushed to the headlines just two days before the election.
And it was a “stunning” reversal from shortly before, when Trump was confirmed to have a four-point lead.
According to a documentation from Americafirstreport.com, “Released just days before voters headed to the polls, the numbers lit up cable news and social media, painting a false picture of momentum for the Democratic ticket in a reliably red stronghold. In reality, Trump crushed Harris by more than 13 points, his widest margin in Iowa yet and the biggest Republican presidential win there since Ronald Reagan’s era.”
Trumps court filing in Polk County District Court charged that the defendants, Selzer, the Register and others, of “brazen election interference” through a “leaked and manipulated” poll intended to sway undecided voters.
“The complaint lays out a pattern of suspicious shifts: sample sizes skewed toward urban areas, questionable weighting that favored younger and minority respondents, and a sudden leak to friendly outlets that amplified the Harris lead without scrutiny,” the report said.
Now the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has cleared the way for the defamation lawsuit to proceed in state court.
“This move strips away what Trump’s lawyers called a shield of ‘unlawful gamesmanship’ by the defendants, forcing them to face accountability where the wrongs took place,” the report said.
The report pointed out that the huge fail by Selzer, who strangely decided to abandon polling days after this was released, “smacks of something more coordinated, especially given the timing and the media echo chamber that treated it as gospel despite her spotted track record…”
The report noted, “Her polls have always tended to favor whoever she personally supports.”
The defendants had tried to move the case from state to federal court, but Trump’s lawyers argued that the federal venue move was a delay tactic as state law governed the claims.
The 8th Circuit agreed.
The report noted this case, ultimately, “could crack open doors to similar suits against pollsters nationwide reminding the press that free speech doesn’t license fraud.”