Republican candidates in New Hampshire running for president and governor agree: The Colorado Supreme Court ruling barring Donald Trump from that state’s ballot is a mistake. Or worse.
“They can’t beat Donald Trump at the ballot box, so they are trying to beat him in the courts. What we are witnessing in Colorado is a blatant attempt to end democracy as we know it,” former state Senate President Chuck Morse said in a statement. Morse endorsed Trump in the First in the Nation presidential primary on Saturday.
On Tuesday, the Colorado court issued a 4-3 opinion that Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot for the 2024 presidential election there because he is disqualified by Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment relating to “engaging in insurrection.”
Similar efforts to use state interpretation and enforcement of the 14th Amendment to keep Trump off the ballot have been rejected by courts in Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire.
New Hampshire’s secretary of state rejected it as well.
“New Hampshire state law… requires the placement of a candidate’s name on the presidential primary ballot as long as they swear under the penalties of perjury that they meet the qualifications in Article 2 of the United States Constitution. That language is not discretionary. As long as a presidential candidate swears under penalties of perjury that they meet the above qualifications and pays a $1,000 filing fee during the filing period, their name SHALL be placed upon the ballot,” Secretary of State David Scanlan said on September 12. [emphasis in the original].
“I do not expect the Colorado Supreme Court ruling to impact New Hampshire’s First-in-the-Nation presidential primary on January 23, which will have Donald Trump’s name on the Republican ballot,” Scanlan told NHJournal on Wednesday.
Most legal observers say they believe the U.S. Supreme Court will overrule Colorado’s decision. Whatever the legal outcome, however, the attempt by four liberal Colorado Supreme Court justices to stop Republican voters from being able to cast their ballots for Trump is likely to impact the GOP presidential primary.
“This actually helps Trump with the Republican base,” said GOP strategist Patrick Griffin. “More of the justice system and ‘The Establishment’ trying unjustly persecute him. Trump’s answer is, ‘They’re doing this to me because I’m winning.’”
Jim Merrill, another veteran New Hampshire GOP strategist, agrees.
“The Colorado ruling will galvanize Trump’s base and cause a similar GOP rallying reaction he has benefitted from in prior legal proceedings. Candidates can either choose to be drowned out by this issue over the next 5 weeks, or go on offense and cite this as a reason to vote for them and move on from the noise and constant chaos,” Merrill said.
Even Trump’s GOP opponents have rejected the Colorado court’s actions.
“I don’t believe that it’s good for our country if he’s precluded from the ballot by a court. I think it’s bad for the country if that happens,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said during a Tuesday night town hall in Bedford, N.H.
“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,” Christie added.
At a campaign stop in Iowa, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said, “There was no trial on any of this. They basically just said, ‘You can’t be on the ballot’…I think the U.S. Supreme Court is going to reverse that.”
And former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters in Agency, Iowa, “I will beat [Trump] fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions. We need voters to make these decisions. So I want to see this in the hands of the voters.”
In New Hampshire, Republican reaction has been overwhelmingly negative.
“Voters have a constitutional right to pick our presidents — not judges. We must leave it up to the voters to decide our elections at the ballot box,” said former U.S. senator and GOP candidate for governor Kelly Ayotte.
State GOP chair Chris Ager posted his take on X: “Ridiculous ruling in Colorado. In NH court, NHGOP intervened in support of letting the voters decide and was successful. Now on to the Supreme Court. Innocent until proven guilty.”
