A judge in Iowa has thrown out a high-profile lawsuit brought by former President and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump against The Des Moines Register and its longtime former pollster J. Ann Selzer, centered on a pre-election poll that showed Trump trailing current Vice President Kamala Harris in the critical early nominating state of Iowa ahead of the 2024 general election.
In a detailed 64-page ruling, Judge Scott Beattie found that the published poll fell squarely under the protection of free speech guarantees in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The dismissal rejects Trump’s core argument that Selzer had engaged in deliberate election interference through an inaccurate prediction, which Trump claimed amounted to actionable fraud.
Trump filed the suit after he ultimately won Iowa by a comfortable 14-point margin in the 2024 election. He was joined as co-plaintiff by two Iowa Republican officials: U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Senator Brad Zaun. The campaign had framed the poll as a deliberate scam designed to undermine Trump’s lead in the closing days of the race.
In the ruling, Judge Beattie emphasized that Trump’s legal attempt sought to distort both Iowa statutory law and common law to penalize speech that receives the highest level of constitutional protection. “Allowing a legally faulty claim like this to go forward carries a cost that an ordinary case does not, because defending it can discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs,” Beattie wrote.
Following the ruling, a spokesperson for Trump reaffirmed the former president’s commitment to holding accountable what he frames as purveyors of deception and fake news. The BBC has reached out to Trump’s legal team for additional comment on the dismissal, but has not yet received a response.
Selzer, whose polling has long been a staple of Iowa political reporting, has a mixed track record of predictions that spans decades. She successfully called major outcomes including Barack Obama’s landslide victory in the 2008 Iowa caucuses and the 2014 Iowa U.S. Senate election. However, she also famously missed the mark in 2004, when her poll predicted John Kerry would defeat George W. Bush in the state.
In a post-ruling statement, Selzer pushed back against framing polling as a precise predictive science, noting that “polling is a social science, not clairvoyance.” She added, “What we can guarantee is that we will follow the data wherever it leads, even when the results are uncomfortable or unexpected.” Selzer expressed gratitude that the judge’s ruling reaffirmed the fundamental right of pollsters to collect and publish data without political interference.