An Iowa judge on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer over a 2024 poll. District Court Judge Scott Beattie ruled that the disputed poll and its coverage constitute constitutionally protected political speech rather than actionable consumer fraud.
A high-profile legal challenge aimed at penalizing pre-election polling has collapsed in an Iowa courtroom. In a definitive ruling, District Court Judge Scott Beattie dismissed the lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and former Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun against the newspaper and its pollster.
The dispute centered on the Iowa Poll released in the closing days of October 2024. Conducted by Selzer’s firm, the survey indicated that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris led Trump by 3 percentage points among likely Iowa voters, capturing 47% to Trump’s 44%. When actual ballots were counted days later, Trump won the state by 13 percentage points—a margin that prompted the plaintiffs to cry foul.
The Legal Battle and Consumer Fraud Claims
Trump and his co-plaintiffs filed the suit in December 2024 against The Des Moines Register, its parent company USA TODAY Co. (formerly known as Gannett), and pollster J. Ann Selzer. The petition alleged that the published poll results were intentionally skewed and fabricated to damage Trump’s campaign, diminish his resources, and constituted election interference
as well as violations of Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act.
The plaintiffs argued that the poll functioned as a commercial product whose inaccuracies directly harmed their political campaigns. Judge Beattie rejected that premise entirely, ruling that a news organization reporting survey findings engages in core political expression rather than commercial transactions. The judge noted that even if the court accepted the plaintiffs’ allegations that the poll was flawed, the legal claims still failed to meet the statutory thresholds for fraud.
First Amendment Protections and the Chilling Effect
In his 2026 ruling, Beattie emphasized that penalizing a media outlet or pollster for publishing election data would inflict severe collateral damage on public discourse. The court determined that allowing the faulty claims to proceed would create an environment where independent news organizations hesitate to cover public affairs.
“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. 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.”
District Court Judge Scott Beattie
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which provided pro bono legal defense for Selzer, described the litigation as an attempt to silence critics through costly legal attrition. FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere characterized the lawsuit as one that was laughable from the beginning and never should have been brought.
Reactions from the Defense and the Press
Following the dismissal, Selzer defended the integrity of survey research, noting that statistical polling measures public sentiment at a specific moment rather than predicting a definitive outcome.
“Polling is a social science, not clairvoyance, and no responsible pollster can guarantee an election outcome.”
J. Ann Selzer, pollster
Selzer added that she was grateful for the court’s diligence, which reaffirms the fundamental freedom to pursue and publish factual data without political interference. Representatives for the USA TODAY Co. echoed those sentiments, with chief legal counsel Polly Grunfeld Sack calling the decision a victory for the First Amendment and an essential check against attempts to punish media coverage.
Broader Legal Context and Next Steps
The Iowa state court decision arrived concurrently with other high-stakes legal battles involving the administration and the press, including ongoing disputes over White House press access for certain news organizations.