Iowa Judge Scott J. Beattie dismissed President Trump’s lawsuit over a badly missed 2024 election poll, finding that First Amendment protections defeated the fraud claims.
Beattie dismissed the case with prejudice, which prevents Trump from filing it again. The Hill reported that Trump’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute centered on a Des Moines Register poll showing former Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three points. Trump went on to win the state by 14 points.
Trump’s lawyers called the polling data “deceptive.” They argued that its publication violated Iowa consumer-fraud law and amounted to fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation.
Beattie drew a firm line between an inaccurate election forecast and legally actionable fraud. He found that Trump’s complaint stretched Iowa law too far against speech protected by the First Amendment.
Beattie put the court’s conclusion plainly in his ruling:
“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,”
The ruling does not excuse the poll’s large miss. It says that a failed prediction, even one published days before an election, does not become fraud merely because the result proved it wrong.
That distinction matters. Pollsters can face public scrutiny, lost trust and demands for better methods without courts turning every inaccurate forecast into a consumer-fraud case.
Trump first filed the lawsuit in Iowa state court in December 2024. The case moved to federal court in February 2025, and Trump later dropped it.
He returned to state court during the following summer with an almost identical complaint filed in Polk County. Beattie’s Wednesday ruling ended that renewed case.
The available account did not identify the precise damages Trump sought. It also did not provide the poll’s sample size, methodology, exact state statutes or the date of the second filing.
J. Ann Selzer, the pollster named in Trump’s lawsuit, defended the limits of election polling after the dismissal. “Polling is a social science, not clairvoyance, and no responsible pollster can guarantee an election outcome,” she said.
Selzer also said responsible pollsters must follow their data even when the results appear unexpected. She praised Beattie’s ruling as protection against political interference in publishing polling work.
Her defense cannot erase the gap between the poll and the election result. But under Beattie’s ruling, that credibility question belongs in public debate rather than a fraud lawsuit.
Bad polling deserves tough scrutiny. Courts, however, must enforce the law as written and protect political speech even when its predictions fail.
