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Premiere on Fox — President Donald Trump scored a legal victory Friday in his lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register, with the case now headed to an Iowa court after an appeals court sided with the president and ruled that a lower court overstepped its authority.
Trump's legal team accused the defendants of “blatant interference” in the 2024 Iowa presidential election, which showed Trump trailing Democrat Kamala Harris. Trump's legal team initially requested that the case be moved to Iowa state court after the defendants “removed” the case to federal court.
A federal judge rejected the request at the time, but the Obama-appointed judge rejected it by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
In a sharply worded opinion, the Eighth Circuit granted Trump’s petition for a writ of mandamus — a rare judicial order to correct a clear legal error — and directed the district judge to treat the case as a dismissal “without prejudice,” allowing Trump to reopen it.
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President Donald Trump scored a major legal victory Friday in his lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A spokesperson for Trump's legal team told Fox News Digital: “Today's fair and appropriate ruling by the Eighth Circuit ensures that President Trump's serious case, focused on the false election interference polls conducted and alleged by J. Ann Selzer, will be litigated by the Des Moines Register and its corporate owner Gannett in their own state court in Iowa.”
“These defendants have repeatedly used illegal means to avoid justice in state courts, and that ends today,” the spokesperson continued. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who spread fake news, lies, and slander.”
Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which represents Selzer, issued a statement.
“The Eighth Circuit's ruling focuses entirely on technicalities of civil procedure and makes no reference to the merits of the case. This case is as moot today as it was yesterday, a fact that will be borne out in whatever forum it is ultimately resolved,” Cohen-Revere told Fox News Digital.
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J. Ann Selzer was criticized after she released a wildly inaccurate poll ahead of the 2024 election that showed Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump in Iowa. Trump won the state by more than 13 points. (Screenshot from Getty Images/The Bulwark Podcast via YouTube)
Lark-Marie Antón, a spokesperson for Gannett, the parent company of the Des Moines Register, believes the case should be heard in federal court.
“We are evaluating the court's ruling. Given the nature of the case and involving the President of the United States as the plaintiff, we continue to believe that federal court is the most appropriate forum for this lawsuit. If the lawsuit is heard in an Iowa court, we believe the matter will be fairly decided,” Anton told Fox News Digital.
The lawsuit, originally filed in December in Polk County, Iowa, seeks what it calls “blatant acts of election interference by the Des Moines Register and Selzer in support of now-defeated former Democratic candidate Kamala Harris through the use of a leaked and manipulated Des Moines Register/MediaCom Iowa poll released on November 2, 2024.”
“The Harris Poll was not a 'mistake,' but an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election,” the lawsuit said at the time, adding, “Defendants and their associates in the Democratic Party hoped that the Harris Poll would create a false narrative that Harris was unavoidable in the final week of the 2024 presidential election.”
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Donald Trump takes the stage during a campaign event at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, on January 14, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Selzer released the final poll sponsored by the Des Moines Register showing Harris leading Trump by three points in Iowa, just three days before the election. The shocking poll showed a 7-point shift in Trump's support from September, when Harris led the vice president by 4 points in the same poll.
Selzer's polls were hyped by the media in the days leading up to the election because her poll predictions were historically accurate. Many believed this represented a dramatic shift in support for Harris in red states across the Midwest, but the polls were far apart.
Trump defeated Harris by more than 13 percentage points in Iowa, his third consecutive win in the state and the first time since 1980 that a candidate won by double digits.
Shortly after the election, Seltzer announced that she was done with the election polls and moving on to “other ventures.”
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Fox News Digital's Lindsay Kornick and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Brian Flood is a media editor/reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @briansflood.