BREAKING: Trump Drops Lawsuit Against Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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."

{snip}

Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump/breaking-trump-drops-lawsuit-against-iowa-pollster-ann-selzer/amp/

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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

[Irish_Dem]

1. She's the one who had excellent data. Showing a Harris win.

This pollster could tell us how Trump cheated to get installed into the WH.
She is the gold standard of Iowa polls.

[reACTIONary]

6. There is no way that Harris won Iowa.

[Irish_Dem]

9. How do you explain Stelzer's data?

Her research design and methodology looked good.
She predicted a major shift in Iowa.

[JI7]

10. Polls aren't 100 perfect accurate.

[lostnfound]

29. Except the "adjusted" "exit polls" done on only 11 states which pretend to tell us how every small demographic voted

adjusted to match the official results. Back in my youth, they DID match the official results, and they were performed in every state. Which changed around 2000.

Now their public purpose isn’t to confirm the results or expose anomalies; they are only used to make sure that identity politics is amplified and to point out “Democratic failures” like Lucy with the football.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. It happens.

[Irish_Dem]

13. Research design and methodology have improved a great deal in the last 80 years.

We can get very accurate results via polling with fairly small sample sizes.

The fact Trump went after her right away with vengeance tells me she had the goods on Trump.
He had to destroy her.

[reACTIONary]

16. Ask stelzer how she explains it.

[Jose Garcia]

32. How do you explain all the other polls showing Trump leading comfortably?

[0rganism]

36. Even the best-quality poll has a chance to be an outlier

It's not Stelzer's fault, nor her organization, not even the data itself. It's the nature of the beast -- done correctly, there's a high chance a randomly-sampled poll result is within the margin of error, but it's never 100%. There's always a very small chance you collected data showing a truly wacky result. The simplest explanation is that Stelzer's poll was an unfortunate outlier of that sort. It happens.

As this is part of the mathematics upon which polling itself is based, it's also an iron-clad defense against the kind of allegations levied by F47's flock of legal vultures, which may be why they dropped their case.

[angryxyouth]

14. Trump doesn't want the Data coming out in open court

There is a case now which has been in the news about trying to get a hand recount in Rockland NY because of anomalies found in the tabulation . https://smartelections.us/2024-election-update

This is a report on the Pennsylvania election from world renowned political scientist and election analyst expert Dr Walter R Mebane a professor at the University of Michigan. This report is on his U Mich website.
https://websites.umich.edu/~wmebane/PA2024.pdf

There are also anomalies found in Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada and other. The information is coming out slowly as lawsuits are being filed to allow full hand recounts.

See electiontruthalliance.org I know it’s a terrible name but the analysis they are doing is amazing. They use all data points which don’t discriminate against parties. It’s math. They also have a YouTube channel and are on substack. All of the data is reviewable and peer reviewed.

[Irish_Dem]

15. Yes. His goal was to make her fold and run.

But she fought back and that means she would show her data in open court.

I saw her speak in the weeks leading up to the election and was impressed
with her research design and methodology.

Once researchers see the data and polling specifics the truth will be out there for
all to see.

I also believe her data will show how Trump cheated, how he manipulated the votes,
and exactly where and what he did.

[angryxyouth]

17. I think you're right

It is all going to come out. Some of the people doing the analysis are saying there appears to consistency between how the data looks on graphs through all the states they have now analyzed. It also seems consistent with elections and other countries. The graphs seemed the show what they are calling a Russian tail because it’s consistent with the graphs first seen in Russian elections. The graph should look like a standard Bell curve, but they don’t they peak at the end among other things.

[Irish_Dem]

19. Yes today they have very sophisticated computer analysis of research data.

The tools are amazing.

The research designs and analysis are so sophisticated that older PhDs like myself
are not even sure what we are looking at!

I am sure they can start comparing prior data with the Trump data
and the differences and oddities will pop out.

If the data looks like Russia election data, and we are seeing very
odd low probability configuration, we are then putting together the crime scene data.

[angryxyouth]

23. I would be interested in knowing

What you think about the information in the links that I provided. On the electiontruthalliance facebook site they walk you through the many types of graphs.

?si=xZeE_jbQDBoid5a7
This link is the face of ETA on the MarkTompson podcast on youtube. If you skip to 12:10 time it takes you rite to the technical stuff.

[Irish_Dem]

24. I will take a look thanks!

[reACTIONary]

20. I'm not sure I understand....

.... How would a binary decision, basically a coin toss, show up as a "normal distribution"? I would think the graph would be two straight lines, one for trump, one for Haris. Maybe a blip for a libertarian or a green.

Do you have a link to these charts? I'm curious as to what they are graphing.

[elleng]

2. Trump Drops Lawsuit Against Des Moines Register.

https://politicalwire.com/2025/06/30/trump-drops-lawsuit-against-des-moines-register/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Damage done. She should sue for Frivolous Litigation. . . . nt

[Midnight Writer]

22. Absolutely. Victims of these frivolous, meritless lawsuits should counter-sue.

This Administration has made it a standard practice to use the legal system to harass anyone who publicly disagrees with them.

It is past time that the Administration faces consequences for harassing people.

[MLWR]

4. " Trump Drops Lawsuit Against Iowa Pollster Ann Selzer"

He never should have filed it in the first place. I bet he was having trouble coming up with the way he was damaged by it.

[obamanut2012]

5. He doesn't want that discovery

[bluestarone]

7. perfect thought.

[onenote]

12. The dismissal isn't about discovery.

First, chances are the case would never get to discovery because the motion to dismiss would be granted. He punted not because he was afraid of discovery but because he thought he had a better chance of winning if the case was heard in state court, which is where he originally filed Indeed, he was still trying to get the case back to state court as recently as last month. When that effort was crushed by the federal judge hearing the case, he opted to dismiss -- without prejudice -- the federal action.

He may have a plan in mind where he can re-file in state court in a way that won't get bounced back to fedrtal court. Will it work? I don't think so and hope not, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this isn't the end of his efforts.

[reACTIONary]

18. Thanks! Good analyses.

[BeyondGeography]

8. A good day for Ann

I hope she is living well and happily.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. Selzer's attorney tells me there has been no settlement.

Link to tweet

[onenote]

27. There would be no settlement where a case is dismissed without prejudice

Why would Selzer pay to settle a suit that can be re-filed? She wouldn't.

[Botany]

25. Because that poll was accurate and Krasnov does not want the truth exposed.

Trump cheated. End of story.

[onenote]

26. Then why did he file the lawsuit in the first place?

Why did he make every effort possible to keep the suit alive in state court? It would be subject to discovery, if it went to trial, whether it was in state court or federal court.

[Botany]

28. Because suing people, governments, universities, news organizations, businesses, and so on is his ...

… S. O. P. Standard Operating Procedure.

He is now suing the City of Los Angeles for being Los Angeles.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/132151636

[onenote]

35. As predicted -- he has re-filed in state court.

See post #12.

[sinkingfeeling]

30. Dropped in federal court and moved to state court.

[onenote]

34. Exactly what I predicted he would try. See post #12.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

31. trump was losing in federal court and went to state court before new SLAPP law went into effect

Link to tweet

An update on the unusual saga of Trump's lawsuit against Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over her 2024 election poll:

Yesterday, Trump moved to dismiss the case in federal court and re-filed essentially the same suit in state court. (The original suit also started in state court and was moved to federal court.)

Now, the Register argues the dismissal was improper, and an attempt to evade possible penalties under Iowa's new anti-SLAPP law.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

33. Trump drops federal lawsuit against Iowa pollster, refiles in state court

trump was losing in federal court and had tried earlier to move the case back to state court. This dismissal and refiling smells

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/01/trump-iowa-lawsuit-poll-state-court/

Lawyers for President Donald Trump on Monday filed a motion to drop his federal lawsuit against longtime Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register newspaper, and refiled the suit in an Iowa state court.....

Attorneys for the newspaper sought to block the dismissal of the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa Central Division. They argued that Trump and his co-plaintiffs — Bradley Zaun, a Republican former Iowa state senator, and federal Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) — had previously sought to have the case remanded to a state court and were refused. An appeal of this decision was still active, they added in a motion filed Monday......

Trump’s legal team wrote in a filing to the Iowa Southern District Court that, “Plaintiffs President Donald J. Trump, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and Former State Senator Bradley Zaun, give notice of their dismissal of this action without prejudice pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(1)(A)(i).”

Trump’s legal team refiled the lawsuit against Selzer and the Des Moines Register in the Iowa state court for Polk County, according to court documents.

Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is providing legal representation for Selzer’s defense, told The Washington Post that it was aware of the voluntary dismissal in federal court. “There is no settlement in the case,” he added. “We are reviewing next steps as we continue to defend J. Ann Selzer’s First Amendment rights.”

In a later statement, FIRE said on social media that the attempt to change jurisdiction was “procedural gamesmanship” and “a transparent attempt to avoid federal court review of the president’s transparently frivolous claims.”

[0rganism]

37. Hmm, smells like someone's cooking TACOs

Delicious

[LetMyPeopleVote]

38. Judge rejects Trump's bid to dismiss suit pending in federal court over Des Moines Register '24 Iowa poll

The federal court judge rejected trump's attempt to dismiss and refile

Link to tweet

This order made me smile
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.iasd.89411/gov.uscourts.iasd.89411.78.0.pdf