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Donald Trump has been disqualified from Colorado’s Republican presidential primary ballot due to his involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, in a legal ruling that could have significant implications for the 2024 race.
The Colorado supreme court on Tuesday said Trump was not fit to be president under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits US officers who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion from holding office.
The decision is the latest legal setback for Trump as he fights a number of challenges across the country, including criminal and civil cases, while seeking to secure a second term in the White House. While its direct consequences will be limited to ballots in Colorado, it could set up a fierce battle before the US Supreme Court with far-reaching ramifications.
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the Colorado justices wrote. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favour, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
The decision stems from a case brought earlier this year from a group of Colorado voters who claimed Trump had engaged in insurrection on January 6, 2021, when a group of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in presidential polls.
The seven-member Colorado court voted 4-3 that Trump should be disqualified. The majority found that evidence presented to it “established that President Trump engaged in insurrection”.
“President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterised as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary,” the majority added.
Colorado’s chief justice Brian Boatright wrote in dissent that the proceedings should have been dismissed. Other presidential qualifications, such as age, may be addressed by the Colorado law underpinning the case. But they “pale in comparison to the complexity of an action to disqualify a candidate for engaging in insurrection”, Boatright wrote.
Trump is the clear frontrunner in the Republican race to be the party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election. He is also facing criminal charges, in federal court and in the state of Georgia, in connection with alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. He has pleaded not guilty.
Trump’s campaign said the order was “completely flawed” and that it would “swiftly file” an appeal against it with the US Supreme Court.
Many of his fellow Republicans reacted with outrage to the decision. Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, called it “nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack” and said he “trust[ed] the US Supreme Court will set aside this reckless decision”.
At a campaign event in Iowa on Tuesday night, Trump told supporters:
“It is no wonder crooked Joe Biden and the far left lunatics are desperate to stop us by any means necessary. They are willing to violate the US Constitution at levels never seen before in order to win this election. Joe Biden is a threat to democracy — a threat.”
Even some of Trump’s Republican primary opponents came to his defence. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has been critical of Trump’s legal troubles, said: “What I will say is I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being President of the United States, by any court. I think he should be prevented from being the President of the United States by the voters of this country.”
Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is also running against Trump in the Republican primary, said on X: “The Left invokes ‘democracy’ to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds.” The US Supreme Court “should reverse”, he added.
Colorado has just 10 of the 538 total votes in the electoral college used to decide the US presidential winner. Legal efforts to disqualify Trump in a handful of other states, including Minnesota, Arizona and Michigan, have so far fallen short. But a decision from the US Supreme Court, should it decide to take Trump’s appeal, could either invite further challenges on similar grounds across the country or shut them down altogether.
The Colorado justices have stayed their ruling until January 4, the day before the deadline to certify the primary ballots, pending a potential review by the country’s highest court.
“We are . . . cognisant that we travel in uncharted territory, and that this case presents several issues of first impression,” the majority said.
The US Supreme Court is considering whether to take up a separate appeal submitted by the special counsel overseeing the federal criminal cases against Trump. Trump has argued that he should be protected from criminal prosecution over alleged election interference because he was president at the time. The special counsel, Jack Smith, has disagreed, and asked the high court to issue a ruling swiftly.
Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor and Alex Rogers
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