(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa have refiled their lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its former pollster, J. Ann Selzer, over the results of a 2024 Iowa Poll. In an apparent move to keep Miller-Meeks and a former state representative as plaintiffs in the case, attorneys for the president dismissed their case in federal court on Monday while refiling their lawsuit in state court.

The lawsuit was initiated in December 2024 when Trump sued the Register, its parent company, Gannett, and Selzer in Polk County District Court, alleging the newspaper’s Iowa Poll, which was published shortly before the Nov. 5 election, deliberately overstated support for the Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, by 16 percentage points. Trump argued the poll amounted to “brazen election interference” and violated Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act. The defendants have denied the claims.

Attorneys for the president later expanded the lawsuit, adding claims by Miller-Meeks, a Republican who narrowly won reelection in the state’s 1st Congressional District, and by Brad Zaun, a former Republican state senator from Urbandale, who lost his bid for reelection. At the defendants’ request, the case was transferred to federal court. However, a legal dispute soon arose over whether federal court was the proper forum for the case given the fact that Miller-Meeks and Zaun, like the defendants, are based in Iowa.

On May 23, 2025, a federal judge denied Trump’s motion to remand the case from federal court back to state court. In that decision, the court allowed the president to file an appeal on the issue but also ordered Trump to file an amended complaint removing Miller-Meeks and Zaun from the case, eliminating any claims that were exclusive to the two Iowa-resident plaintiffs. Trump was facing a July 18 deadline to file an amended complaint in federal court.

On Monday, the attorneys for the president filed a notice of dismissal in the federal case, notifying the court they were dropping their case without prejudice – indicating there was no settlement to the case and it could be refiled at a later date. At roughly the same time, the president’s attorneys refiled the lawsuit in Polk County District Court, with Miller-Meeks and Zaun rejoining the president as co-plaintiffs.

As before, the lawsuit claims Selzer’s actions “impacted many other elections, including Rep. Miller-Meeks’ contest” and Zaun’s race against Democrat challenger Matt Blake in Iowa Senate District 22. “Selzer’s polling ‘miss’ was not an astonishing coincidence — it was intentional,” the lawsuit alleges. “As President Trump observed, ‘She knew exactly what she was doing.’”

The defendants in the case have yet to file a formal response to the newest court filing but have already denied the allegations in previous court filings.