Second lawsuit filed against Des Moines Register, Selzer over Iowa Poll

Another group is suing the Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer over the Iowa Poll published days before the 2024 general election on behalf of the paper’s subscribers, saying the Register “delivered the dictionary definition of fake news” by publishing the poll.

The Center for American Rights, a conservative nonprofit based out of Chicago, filed the lawsuit in Polk County District Court Wednesday on behalf of Dennis Donnelly of West Des Moines.

It’s the second lawsuit challenging the Register and Selzer over the poll published three days before the election, which found Vice President Kamala Harris leading President-elect Donald Trump by 3 percentage points among likely Iowa voters. Trump also filed a lawsuit over the poll in December.

Trump won Iowa in the November election with 56% of the vote, while Harris received 43%. Both plaintiffs are suing The Des Moines Register and Gannett, the company that owns the paper, and Selzer and Selzer & Co. under the state’s Consumer Fraud Act, alleging that the Iowa Poll was published despite parties knowing that the results were not accurate.

“The Register was not careful with these poll results,” the Center for American Rights lawsuit states. “Every possible red flag should have been blazing high in the sky. … Yet rather than double-checking or re-running the poll or bringing in an outside expert to analyze the sample and methodology or undertaking any of the other industry practices that would validate a seemingly shocking poll number, the Register released it as a banner headline.”

Daniel Suhr, president of the Center for American Rights, said the Register “defrauded every subscriber who paid for trustworthy reporting” by publishing the poll.

The Register’s legal counsel said in a statement that the new lawsuit was a “frivolous, copy-cat” of Trump’s lawsuit and was an attempt to use consumer protection laws to suppress speech protected under the First Amendment.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a nonprofit focused on freedom of speech protections, is representing Selzer and her company in both lawsuits.

FIRE attorneys Adam Steinbaugh and Conor Fitzpatrick published a news release Tuesday arguing that the Trump lawsuit is “the very definition of a ‘SLAPP’ suit” — a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation meant to punish defendants through time and costs of litigation.

“This lawsuit uses an inapplicable state statute as a cudgel to force Selzer and the Register to waste time and money on lawyers to respond to the allegations,” the attorneys state. “Enlisting the courts to settle political grudges is directly at odds with the First Amendment’s protection for political speech.”