An Iowa judge on Wednesday threw out President Trump’s lawsuit over the Des Moines Register’s final 2024 poll and declared that even a wildly off election-eve survey is the kind of “erroneous statement” the First Amendment must protect.

RedState readers will surely remember the poll in question. The Register published a wild outlier three days before the presidential election, suggesting Kamala Harris held a lead over her Republican opponent in Iowa. The Hawkeye State was not considered competitive. And it wasn't. Trump went on to win the state by 13 points.

It was a 16-point miss that Trump described as "brazen election interference." The national media took that poll and ran with it, producing shocking headlines that offered hope to the Harris campaign and were seemingly designed to drive turnout for the flailing candidate.

In December 2024, Trump — joined by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-01) and former Iowa Sen. Brad Zaun — sued pollster J. Ann Selzer, Selzer & Company, the Des Moines Register, and Gannett (now USA Today Co.) under Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act. 

Judge Scott Beattie didn't buy into the argument, dismissed the case in full, and rejected Trump’s attempt to treat the poll as a defective product under Iowa’s consumer-fraud law. In his 64-page decision, he argued that allowing the suit to proceed would chill debate.

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“Allowing a legally faulty claim like this to proceed carries a cost that an ordinary case does not, because defending it can discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs,” Beattie wrote. “Erroneous statements are inevitable in free debate and must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space they need to survive.”

The lawsuit attempted to label the poll as a "product," defective in nature, an assessment the judge rejected outright.

“Simply labeling the poll a product does not change the analysis,” he wrote. “The fact that someone was paid to conduct the poll does not transform it from speech into a product. ... The rights protected by the First Amendment are not a word game.”

That does not mean the poll was good, honest, or harmless. In fact, it was a spectacular miss which Trump's team believes may have had ill intent behind it. 

"Errors are inevitable" may be a reason not to impose damages, but it is not a finding that the Register and Selzer did a competent job or that the timing was innocent.

Selzer would retire from the polling business just two weeks after the embarrassing pro-Harris results, ending a 27-year relationship with the Des Moines Register.

“My integrity means a lot to me,” she wrote in an op-ed for the newspaper. ”To those who have questioned it, there are likely no words to dissuade."

Selzer claimed the exit was pre-planned.

Trump's legal team has no intention of letting this end with Judge Beattie's decision.

“President Trump is committed to holding responsible those who traffic in deception and fake news,” a statement reads. “This scam was designed to damage President Trump’s dominant campaign in the final days of the race. Such fraud cannot be allowed to stand, and President Trump will take his powerful case to the Iowa Supreme Court in order to see it through to a just and winning conclusion.”