Trump suggests that publishing poll results he dislikes should be illegal

Eleven months ago, The Des Moines Register published the results of a national poll that showed Donald Trump with a significant lead in the Republican Party's presidential election. At the time, the former president called the poll “a big, beautiful poll” and praised pollster J. Ann Selzer.

The paper, the GOP candidate said, had “a great pollster – in fact, a very, very strong pollster, a very good, talented pollster.”

That was before the Des Moines Register released the results of its latest statewide survey.

“No one can say they saw this coming,” Selzer said.

That's correct. Trump won Iowa relatively easily in the last two election cycles; the Hawkeye State has drifted deeper and deeper shades of red in recent years; and as recently as June, when President Joe Biden was still seeking a second term, the same pollster found the former president leading by 18 points.

And yet, the most recent results showed Harris with a three-point lead. (Click the link for more information about the survey methodology and margin of error.)

Is the survey an outlier? That's entirely possible, and given that Democrats haven't flooded Iowa with ads and appearances in recent weeks, it's a safe bet that the Harris campaign's internal polling won't be nearly as positive as the results of Register/Mediacom.

If pressed, I could probably come up with some sort of rationalization to justify the results — an unpopular Republican-imposed abortion ban recently took effect in the state, for example — but all in all, either Selzer's numbers an outlier, or the Democratic vice president will definitely enjoy Election Day.

But just as interesting as the data was the GOP candidate's reaction to the data.

Shortly after the newspaper published the poll results, Trump posted an article on his social media platform condemning the data as “severely distorted… by a Trump hater.”

Remember, less than a year ago, the former president hailed Selzer as a “great,” “very good,” and “talented” pollster. Now, however, the public is expected to dismiss her as little more than “a Trump hater.”

Hours after the online post was published, the Republican candidate spoke at a rally and added, “That's called suppression,” in reference to the release of poll data he disapproved of. And actually it should be illegal.”