Trump scores legal win as he gets lawsuit against Iowa pollster, Des Moines Register moved to state court

FIRST ON FOX – President Donald Trump notched a legal victory Friday in his lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register, as the case will now land in Iowa State Court after an appeals court sided with the president and ruled a lower court had overstepped.

Trump’s legal team, who has accused the defendants of "brazen election interference" with their final 2024 Iowa presidential poll that showed him trailing Democrat Kamala Harris, originally requested the case be moved to Iowa State Court in May after the defendants "removed" the case to federal court. A federal judge denied the request at the time, but the Obama-appointed judge was overruled 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 used to correct clear legal errors — and directed a district judge to treat the case as dismissed "without prejudice," allowing Trump to refile the case.

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President Donald Trump notched a key legal victory Friday in his lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

"Today’s just and appropriate ruling by the 8th Circuit ensures that President Trump’s powerhouse case, focused on the fake, election interfering polls conducted and denominated by J. Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register and its corporate owner Gannett, will be litigated in Iowa State Court where it belongs," a spokesman for Trump’s legal team told Fox News Digital. 

"These defendants have repeatedly engaged in unlawful gamesmanship to avoid State Court, and that ends today," the spokesman continued. "President Trump will continue to hold those who traffic in fake news, lies, and smears to account."

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) chief counsel Bob Corn-Revere, who represents Selzer, issued the following statement. 

"The Eighth Circuit ruling was focused entirely on a technical point of civil procedure and said nothing about the merits of the case. This case is every bit as frivolous today as it was yesterday, and that fact will be borne out in whatever forum it is finally resolved," Corn-Revere told Fox News Digital. 

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J. Ann Selzer came under fire after releasing a hugely inaccurate poll ahead of the 2024 election showing Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump in Iowa. Trump went on to win the state by more than 13 points. (Getty Images/ The Bulwark Podcast via YouTube screenshot)

Lark-Marie Antón, a spokesperson for the Des Moines Register's parent company Gannett, believes the case belongs in federal court. 

"We are assessing the Court’s decision. Given the nature of the case and that it involves the President of the United States as a plaintiff, we continue to believe the federal courts are the most appropriate forum for this lawsuit. In the event the suit is heard by the state courts of Iowa, we have confidence the matter will be adjudicated fairly," Antón told Fox News Digital. 

The lawsuit was originally filed in December in Polk County, Iowa, and sought what it calls "accountability for brazen election interference committed by" the Des Moines Register (DMR) 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.

"The Harris Poll was no ‘miss’ but rather an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election," the lawsuit stated at the time, adding that "defendants and their cohorts in the Democrat Party hoped that the Harris Poll would create a false narrative of inevitability for Harris in the final week of the 2024 Presidential Election." 

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Donald Trump arrives on stage during a campaign event at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, on Jan. 14, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Selzer released her final Des Moines Register-sponsored poll showing Harris leading Trump by three points in Iowa just three days before the election. That shock poll showed a seven-point shift from Trump to Harris from September, when he had a four-point lead over the vice president in the same poll.

Selzer’s poll was hyped up by the media in the days leading up to the election as her polling predictions had been historically accurate. Many suggested it implied a monumental shift in Midwest support for Harris in a red state, but the poll turned out to be way off.

Trump thumped Harris in Iowa by more than 13 percentage points, the third straight time he'd won the state and the first time any candidate had won there by double digits since 1980.

Shortly after the election, Selzer announced that she was done with election polling and moving on to "other ventures."

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Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.