Judge Tosses Trump Suit Over Iowa Newspaper’s 2024 Poll That Showed Harris Leading

An Iowa judge dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against a pollster and the Des Moines Register newspaper on Sept. 23, finding an inaccurate poll published three days before the 2024 election was protected speech and didn’t violate the state’s consumer fraud law.

The newspaper published Ann Selzer’s poll on Nov. 2, showing Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points. Trump won the state 56 percent to 43 percent. His lawsuit claimed Selzer acted with “corrupt intent” to help Harris.

The president was joined by U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun, both Republicans, in the lawsuit against Selzer, her polling company, and the newspaper and its parent company. They alleged the misleading coverage diminished their reputations and valuable time and cost them in campaign funds and resources.

The poll also predicted a Democratic victory in Miller-Meeks’s district. Although it did not include Zaun’s race, he blamed the poll’s impact for his loss.

In the ruling, Iowa District Court Judge Scott Beattie found the Iowa Poll and its reporting were fully protected political speech under the First Amendment.

Beattie also found the readers of the Register and Selzer’s polls didn’t suffer a loss.

“Election damages are in any event speculative,” Beattie wrote in the ruling. “It is a claim to have been told the truth. Lying is not fraud, because lying by itself ‘lacks an essential element of a fraud claim: proof of detrimental reliance or actual harm to the plaintiff.’”

The judge also called the case extraordinary, saying that allowing the lawsuit and its claims to proceed could have a “chilling effect” that could discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs.

Beattie said he would have dismissed the case even if he accepted the president’s claims that the poll was intentionally skewed and its results fabricated because the lawsuit did not meet the legal requirements for fraud or consumer deception.

The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, permanently closing the case and ending the legal dispute.

Selzer, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), said there was no guarantee the poll was correct.

“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.”

“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,” Revere said. “The First Amendment does not allow anyone in government, least of all the president, to punish people under the banner of ‘fake news.’”

USA Today Co., formerly known as Gannett and owner of The Register, also called the ruling a “victory for the First Amendment.”

Trump’s personal legal counsel didn’t immediately return a request for comment about the judge’s decision.