Iowa Judge Throws Out Trump's Lawsuit Over Ann Selzer's 2024 Poll, With Prejudice
Judge Scott Beattie ruled the Des Moines Register poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa was protected political speech, not consumer fraud. Trump's lawyers say they will appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.
An Iowa judge on Wednesday dismissed President Donald Trump's lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her firm, The Des Moines Register and its parent company, Gannett. The judge ruled that a poll the newspaper published days before the 2024 election was political speech protected by the First Amendment, not a fraudulent product.
Judge Scott J. Beattie of Iowa's Fifth Judicial District dismissed all three of the plaintiffs' claims with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled. The claims were brought under Iowa's consumer fraud law and for fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation. He also denied their request to block the Register from publishing future polls. Trump was joined in the suit by Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun.
The case centered on Selzer's final Iowa Poll of the 2024 race, published that fall. It showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters in a state Trump had carried twice. Trump went on to win Iowa with 56% of the vote, and he sued in December 2024. He accused the Register and Selzer of misleading readers to damage his campaign and help Democrats.
Beattie wrote that the case was an attempt 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." He found that the poll and the paper's coverage did not meet the narrow fraud exception to First Amendment protection. He warned that letting the case go forward could have a "chilling effect" on public debate.
Selzer, who retired from election polling after the 2024 race, said the ruling "reaffirms the fundamental freedom to pursue and publish the truth without political interference." She added that "polling is a social science, not clairvoyance." She was represented free of charge by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, whose chief counsel, Bob Corn-Revere, led her defense. FIRE called the suit a strategic lawsuit against public participation, one designed to punish speech through legal costs rather than to win on the merits. The group noted that Trump filed just hours before Iowa's new anti-SLAPP law took effect. Under that law, he could have been forced to pay Selzer's attorney fees if he lost.
A spokesperson for Trump's legal team said the president would appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court and pursue "a just and winning conclusion." The ruling is not the first setback for the effort. According to FIRE, a related class-action suit over the same poll was dismissed by a federal court in November 2025.
The dismissal lands in a week of legal fights between Trump and the press. On Thursday, a federal judge in Washington ordered the White House to restore press credentials it had stripped from CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Trump has also sued other news organizations over their coverage, and some, including ABC and Paramount, chose to settle rather than go to trial.
