‘It was fraud’: Trump pushes election hoax hysteria despite winning 2024 election
Despite winning the 2024 election, Donald Trump is filing a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pushing election hoax hysteria because the outlet published a pre-election poll that didn’t have him leading in Iowa.
For almost five years now, Trump and his followers have relentlessly pushed the false belief that widespread election fraud occurred in 2020. To this day, he refuses to admit that he lost the 2020 election, even though his claims of a stolen election have led to hysteria and violence from his followers. When he won the 2024 election, many Americans hoped it at least meant they wouldn’t have to hear cries of fraud for the foreseeable future. However, despite winning the election, the president-elect is still fixated on framing Democrats for voter fraud and interference. Bizarrely, he is trying to claim that a pre-election poll constitutes fraud and election interference simply because it didn’t have him winning.
Donald Trump sues the Des Moines Register over election hoax hysteria
Recently, Trump filed a string of lawsuits in an apparent attempt to control what the media reports on him. He sued and received a hefty settlement from ABC due to George Stephanopoulos stating that Trump was found liable for rape, even though the claim is substantially true. Trump also sued CBS for editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris in a way he disliked. However, possibly his strangest lawsuit is against the Des Moines Register over claims of election fraud because it published a poll that he didn’t like.
During the election, pollster Ann Selzer and her polling firm published a poll on November 2 via the Des Moines Register. The poll demonstrated that Harris was leading the state of Iowa by three percentage points. Ultimately, though, Trump won the state. Now, he’s claiming that the poll was doctored in an attempt to commit “brazen election fraud.” During a press conference in Mar-a-Lago, he stated:
I’m going to be bringing one [a lawsuit] against the people in Iowa, their newspaper…That was ‘the Des Moines Register,’ and in my opinion, it was fraud, and it was election interference.
Essentially, Trump is claiming that the poll was doctored to put Harris ahead of him and garner support for her and was, therefore, fraudulent. Of course, there’s zero evidence that Selzer, a renowned pollster, did anything amiss in her research. The paper and polling firm have been transparent and released the data the poll was based on, which included telephone interviews with 808 Iowa residents. The fact the data found Harris leading is surprising, but Selzer and the Des Moines Register published what they found. They couldn’t predict the future or know that the lead indicated by the data wouldn’t materialize.
Additionally, claiming a single poll caused election interference is a huge reach. It’s well-known that polls aren’t 100% accurate and cannot predict the election. Polls aren’t supposed to be used as a tool to decide who to vote for. The fact that Trump won the state election with a sizable lead demonstrates that the poll didn’t sway voters. Legal experts have already stated that Trump’s lawsuit has no standing in court and will not go anywhere.
However, the ridiculous nature of the lawsuit and outrageous claims of election fraud suggest the lawsuit isn’t about winning in court. With outlets already starting to publish data on Trump’s confidence rating, this lawsuit against the Des Moines Register is sending them a warning that they may face legal action if they publish any data that doesn’t reflect positivity on Trump. It’s behavior that can only be described as dictator-like as the president-elect appears to be trying to censor the media, including trying to block it from reporting the truth, interviewing his adversaries, or publishing data that doesn’t show overwhelming support for him.
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