BREAKING: Trump Drops Lawsuit Against Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer [View all]
Source: Mediaite
BREAKING: Trump Drops Lawsuit Against Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer
SARAH RUMPF JUN 30, 2025 3:43 PM
President Donald Trump has dropped his lawsuit against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register, which he filed in response to a poll she conducted that was published by the paper right before the November election. … The poll in question showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely Iowa voters -- a shocking result that made headlines across the country. Unsurprisingly, Trump was enraged at the poll, and neither winning the election (including a double-digit victory in Iowa) nor Selzer's retirement did much to soothe his ruffled feathers. Later that month, Trump called for Selzer and the newspaper to be investigated and then followed that up with a lawsuit in December.
In the complaint, Trump's attorneys attempted to frame the case as a consumer fraud issue, arguing that Selzer's poll constituted "fake news" and was an act of "brazen election interference," that was an "unfair act or practice" under Iowa's consumer fraud law "because the publication and release of the Harris Poll 'caused substantial, unavoidable injury to consumers that was not outweighed by any consumer or competitive benefits which the practice produced.'" ... The complaint was later amended to add a member of Congress who won her re-election, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), and a state senator who lost, Bradley Zaun.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression {"FIRE"}, a nonpartisan free speech advocacy nonprofit, announced in January that it would represent Selzer pro bono, and issued a statement blasting Trump's lawsuit for being "about as unconstitutional as it gets." Selzer's legal team includes FIRE attorneys Robert Corn-Revere as lead counsel along with Conor Fitzpatrick, Greg Greubel, and Adam Steinbaugh, plus Matthew McGuire of the Des Moines law firm Nyemaster Goode as additional local counsel.
A motion to dismiss filed on Selzer's behalf in February cited extensive case precedent on why the lawsuit overall was an attempt to undermine both the letter and intent of the First Amendment and delivered a scathing point-by-point takedown of how each element of the legal claims the plaintiffs are attempting to bring are "fatally flawed on every level" and nothing more than "a transparent attempt to punish news coverage and analysis of a political campaign."
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Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump/breaking-trump-drops-lawsuit-against-iowa-pollster-ann-selzer/amp/
Mediate is not what Ithinkif as a good source, but even the Des Moines Register doesn't have the story yet on its website.
Hat tip, Kyle Cheney
Trump drops lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and Ann Selzer over her late-campaign poll showing Kamala Harris in play in Iowa. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney.bsky.social) 2025-06-30T19:09:48.796Z
Kyle Cheney
@kyledcheney.bsky.social
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Trump drops lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and Ann Selzer over her late-campaign poll showing Kamala Harris in play in Iowa.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.iasd.89411/gov.uscourts.iasd.89411.71.0.pdf
June 30, 2025 at 3:09 PM
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