Judge dismisses Trump’s ‘election interference’ lawsuit over Iowa poll: ‘Simply an estimate’

WASHINGTON, DC: An Iowa judge on Wednesday, September 23, dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register, its parent company, and pollster J Ann Selzer over a 2024 pre-election poll that incorrectly showed former Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa.

Polk County District Judge Scott J Beattie ruled that the poll and the newspaper’s coverage constituted constitutionally protected political speech.

Trump had alleged that the poll amounted to fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation and sought to restrict the publication of future polls.

The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the same claims cannot be refiled.

Judge dismisses Trump’s lawsuit over Iowa poll

The lawsuit centered on a poll conducted by Selzer and released just days before the November 2024 presidential election. It showed Harris leading Trump among Iowa voters by 47% to 44%.

Trump ultimately won Iowa by approximately 13 percentage points, receiving 56% of the vote in a state where nearly 2 million ballots were cast.

Trump then filed a lawsuit in December 2024 against Selzer, Selzer & Company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company, Gannett, which is now known as USA Today Co.

The president’s complaint alleged violations of Iowa's Consumer Fraud Act, as well as fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation. 

Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Senator Brad Zaun also joined the lawsuit.

However, Beattie rejected the argument that the inaccurate poll could be treated as actionable commercial speech. The judge said the poll involved political speech and that reporting on it during an election year addressed a matter of public importance.

“Election polling is speech protected by the First Amendment, both because it involves a conversation between a pollster and a voter and because the poll itself is speech,” Beattie wrote.

The judge also addressed the fact that the poll's prediction did not match the eventual election result. He noted that polls are estimates based on samples of voters and include margins of error, rather than guarantees of election outcomes.

“A poll is simply an estimate,” Beattie wrote. “A poll reports responses from a sample of voters and includes a reported margin of error.”

Beattie also noted that even if the court assumed, solely for the purposes of evaluating the case, that Trump's allegations about the poll being intentionally skewed were true, the claims would still fail to meet the legal requirements for fraud or consumer deception.

Trump’s lawsuit over Iowa poll dismissed permanently

In his ruling, Beattie also concluded that Trump's complaint attempted to extend Iowa law to speech protected by the First Amendment.

He wrote that the lawsuit sought 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.”

The judge then concluded that the constitutional protections applied to the speech at issue and ordered the case to be dismissed.

The dismissal was entered with prejudice, which prevents Trump from bringing the same claims again.

The court also rejected the plaintiffs' request to prevent Selzer and the newspaper from publishing future polls.

However, a spokesman for Trump's legal team said the president would take the case to the Iowa Supreme Court.