In a split decision on Friday, a three-member panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Donald Trump, overturning a lower court ruling and clearing the way for Trump to move his lawsuit over the final Iowa Poll of the 2024 election back to state court.
Last December, then-President-elect Trump filed a lawsuit against J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm Selzer & Co., the Des Moines Register and its parent company Gannett, claiming the Iowa Poll published three days before the Nov. 5 general election, which showed Kamala Harris leading Trump by 3 percentage points among likely voters in Iowa, wasn’t just wrong, it was a deliberate attempt to interfere in the election and a violation of the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act.
Trump originally filed his lawsuit in state court, but attorneys for Gannett succeeded in having the case removed to federal court. Since Trump doesn’t live in Iowa and didn’t when the alleged harm created by the erroneous poll occurred — the original filing describes him as “a resident of Florida” — it concerned differing jurisdictions, making it a federal matter.
In an attempt to have the case returned to state court, where Trump’s attorneys believe he stands a better chance of winning, the now-president of the United States filed an amended complaint on Jan. 31, adding Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former state senator Brad Zaun as co-plaintiffs, claiming them as Iowa residents harmed by the November 2024 poll. (Zaun, the only incumbent Republican in the legislature to lose his seat in 2024, was hired by the Trump administration in March, and now serves as the Small Business Administration director for the region that covers Iowa.)
In May, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger denied Trump’s request to amend his complaint and dismissed the addition of Miller-Meeks and Zaun as an attempt to game the system.
“Plaintiffs provide no legitimate rationale for Zaun and Miller-Meeks to join a federal lawsuit only to immediately move to remand,” Ebinger said in her decision. “Zaun and Miller-Meeks could have sued defendants in state court without fear of removal [to federal court]. Thus, the only apparent reason to have joined Trump’s lawsuit is to destroy diversity jurisdiction.”
Trump, Miller-Meeks and Zaun appealed Ebinger’s decision to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. On June 30, while that appeal was still pending before the 8th Circuit, Trump filed a motion to withdraw his federal lawsuit. That same day, Trump filed a new version of his lawsuit in Polk County District Court. Unlike his first complaint filed in Polk County District Court in December, the filing included Miller-Meeks and Zaun to establish the Iowa state court jurisdiction.
June 30 was an important deadline for Trump. It was the final day he could sue in state court, and not have it potentially dismissed under Iowa’s new anti-SLAPP law, which went into effect on July 1.
SLAPP stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation, meaning lawsuits of little or no merit designed to harass a person or organization in order to stop or discourage them from speaking out on a public issue. Trump’s lawsuit appears to fall into that category. Not only does it fail to show harm, it stretches the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act to cover a flawed piece of reported news, something that’s never been done before, in an attempt to get around the First Amendment guarantee of press freedom.
In response to Trump filing the Notice of Voluntary Withdrawal, attorneys for Selzer and Gannett argued that procedural rules prevented Trump from ending his case while it was still pending before the appeals court. Two days after Trump filed his motion, Judge Ebinger rejected it.
“Because Trump’s appeal confers jurisdiction to the Eighth Circuit over aspects of this case, Trump must first dismiss the appeal before voluntarily dismissing the district court case,” the judge wrote in her ruling.
Trump attempted to appeal Ebinger’s decision, but his appeal was rejected by the 8th Circuit.
Trump filed the motion for a writ of mandamus, asking the 8th Circuit to order Ebinger to let him withdraw his case. A writ of mandamus is usually only granted in extreme cases when no other form of appeal is available. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, which should only be used in exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance.”
Friday’s 2-1 split decision came in response to Trump’s mandamus motion. Judge Lavenski Smith and Judge David Stras ruled that the 8th Circuit had not yet formally accepted Trump’s appeal when filed his motion to withdraw, so Ebinger had erred in her refusal to dismiss the case. The two-judge majority ordered Ebinger to grant Trump’s motion. Smith was appointed by President George W. Bush and Sitras was appointed by Trump.
Judge Jonathan Kobes, another Trump appointee, dissented, finding Trump had not met the high standard required for granting a writ of mandamus.
The federal case now goes back to Ebinger who is ordered to dismiss it without prejudice. The state case has been assigned to a judge, but has not yet moved forward, as the court was still entertaining arguments about whether the case should be paused until the federal case is resolved.
Gannett said in a statement it was “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.”
