An Iowa judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over a 2024 pre-election poll that incorrectly showed Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa by three points. The judge ruled that election polling and reporting are political speech protected by the First Amendment, and rejected Trump’s claim that the poll amounted to consumer fraud or influenced his campaign’s decisions.

Trump won Iowa by more than 13 points, and the poll was published roughly 72 hours before voting ended. Judge Scott Beattie noted that Trump had publicly dismissed the survey as “fake” and therefore had not shown that his campaign relied on it; Trump’s legal team said it would appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. Selzer and the Register denied wrongdoing, while Selzer said polling is a social science rather than a guarantee of election results.