President Donald Trump has scored a significant legal victory as a federal appeals court ruled in his favor, moving his lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register to Iowa State Court. This decision, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, overturned a lower court’s denial of Trump’s request to transfer the case to state court. The court’s sharply worded opinion granted Trump’s petition for a writ of mandamus — a rare judicial order used to correct clear legal errors — and directed the district judge to treat the case as dismissed ‘without prejudice,’ allowing Trump to refile the case in Iowa State Court.
Trump’s legal team, which has accused Selzer and the Des Moines Register of ‘brazen election interference,’ sought to have the case moved to state court in May after the defendants had initially removed it to federal court. However, a federal judge initially denied the request, but the Obama-appointed judge was overruled by the Eighth Circuit. The legal battle has been centered around the allegations that the defendants released a leaked and manipulated poll that showed Trump trailing Kamala Harris in the final days of the 2024 Iowa presidential race, which Trump’s team claims was part of a coordinated effort to influence the election’s outcome.
Trump’s legal team has argued that the case belongs in state court, where they believe the matter should be adjudicated. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team stated that the ruling ensures that the case will be heard in Iowa State Court, where they believe the defendants have repeatedly engaged in ‘unlawful gamesmanship’ to avoid state litigation. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) chief counsel Bob Corn-Revere, who represents Selzer, issued a statement stating that the Eighth Circuit ruling was focused entirely on a technical point of civil procedure and said nothing about the merits of the case, calling the lawsuit ‘frivolous.’ The case now returns to Iowa’s state courts, where it will be heard in the coming months.
The lawsuit was originally filed in December in Polk County, Iowa, and sought what it called ‘accountability for brazen election interference committed by’ the Des Moines Register and Selzer ‘in favor of now-defeated former Democrat candidate Kamala Harris through use of a leaked and manipulated Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll’ that was published on Nov. 2, 2024. Trump’s legal team claims that the poll, released three days before the election, was part of a coordinated effort to influence the outcome, asserting that the defendants and their allies in the Democrat Party hoped the poll would create a false narrative of inevitability for Harris in the final week of the 2024 presidential race.
However, the final election results showed Trump winning by over 13 percentage points, the third straight time he had won the state and the first time any candidate had won there by double digits since 1980. Selzer released her final poll showing Harris leading Trump by three points in Iowa just three days before the election, but the poll turned out to be way off. Selzer has since announced that she is moving on to ‘other ventures,’ having faced backlash for the controversial results of her poll.
In the wake of the lawsuit, the Des Moines Register’s parent company, Gannett, has stated that it continues to believe the federal courts are the most appropriate forum for the case. However, the decision to move the case to state court has sparked renewed debate about the jurisdiction of legal disputes involving high-profile political figures and the role of state and federal judiciary systems in the United States.