A state judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against veteran Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register on Wednesday over a 2024 poll that inaccurately showed then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the lead.
Trump claimed the newspaper’s poll was “deceptive” and violated Iowa’s consumer fraud law, but Iowa District Judge Scott Beattie disagreed.
“At its core, the plaintiffs’ petition seeks to stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability,” Beattie wrote in the 64-page ruling. “After considering the parties’ arguments, the Court must conclude that the protection is too great and the reach is too far. The case must therefore be dismissed.”
The judge dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the case is permanently closed and cannot be refiled. Following the ruling, Trump’s lawyers said they will take the case to the Iowa Supreme Court for consideration.
Trump initially filed the lawsuit in state court in December 2024. The case was later moved to federal court before the president ultimately dropped the case last year. However, he simultaneously refiled a similar complaint in state court. This is the case that Beattie addressed.
The poll in question showed Harris leading Trump by 3 points among likely Iowa voters, but the election results landed in favor of Trump with a 13-point advantage. The poll was released days before the 2024 presidential election.
Selzer continues to stand by her polling, even if it didn’t accurately reflect the election results.
“Polling is a social science, not clairvoyance, and no responsible pollster can guarantee an election outcome,” Selzer said in a statement. “What we can guarantee is that we will follow the data wherever it leads, even when the results are uncomfortable or unexpected. I am grateful that Judge Beattie’s ruling recognizes these principles and reaffirms the fundamental freedom to pursue and publish the truth without political interference.”
Her pro-bono attorneys at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression celebrated the court ruling.
“We’re pleased that the court recognized what we’ve said all along: This lawsuit was laughable from the beginning and never should have been brought,” said FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere. “The First Amendment does not allow anyone in government, least of all the president, to punish people under the banner of ‘fake news.’ That may work for him as a campaign slogan, but it is not a thing in the law.”
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Trump was not the only plaintiff suing Selzer and the Des Moines Register. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and former Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun, also a Republican, joined the lawsuit last year.
Trump and Miller-Meeks allege they had to expend campaign funds and resources to offset the harm caused by the poll. Miller-Meeks ended up winning her 2024 reelection bid despite trailing her Democratic opponent by 16 points. Zaun was not a subject of the poll, but he alleges that he lost his Iowa Senate seat because of it.