Donald Trump: Bombshell Colorado ruling won’t stop presidential campaign

Never before has a court deemed a presidential candidate ineligible under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution which bars from public office those involved in “insurrection”.

If the momentous ruling holds – and it’s a big if – it will mean voters in Colorado will simply not be able to pick Mr Trump as president, even if the rest of the US can.

But it might not matter anyway. Bizarrely, the very court that has barred him from the ballot could ensure his name does appear, at least in the primary elections. And even if it isn’t there at the presidential election, there is a crucial reason Mr Trump could still win the 2024 election in a landslide anyway.

Critics have claimed that Mr Trump had a role in inciting the January 6 attack in Washington DC and “encouraged” supporters to take action after his election loss.

The former President has flatly denied having any involvement in the incident which shook the bedrock of US democracy.

“A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President,” the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

“Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”

The majority decision by four of the court’s seven judges said his actions were an “overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection”.

Court vs court

Mr Trump slammed the court’s decision and said President Joe Biden, not he, was a “threat to democracy”.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung zeroed in on the Colorado court’s political makeup.

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump,” he was reported as saying on Fox News.

Judges in the state are indeed appointed by the Governor of Colorado, a role which since 2007 has been held by the Democratic Party.

But three of those judges, also appointed by a Democrat governor, voted against barring Mr Trump from the primary ballot paper.

An appeal is almost certain to go to the US Supreme Court.

Yet it’s unlikely Mr Trump’s campaign team will gristle at the makeup of the nine judges of that court.

The Supreme Court is considered to have a conservative 6-3 majority, which includes three judges appointed by Mr Trump when he was in office.

What decision the Supreme Court makes will apply country wide.

“Unless the court can reach a close to unanimous decision or decide the case in a way that scrambles up the perceived ideological divides on the court, half the country is going to believe the court acted in a partisan fashion,” professor at New York University School of Law Rick Pildes told NBC News.

‘99.9pc chance’

Conversely the Colorado judges may have helped ensure that Mr Trump’s name does appear on the primary ballot.

That’s because they put a stay on their decision until January 4 pending a Supreme Court appeal. And that has major ramifications.

January 4 is the deadline for names to be registered to appear on the ballot paper for Colorado’s March primary.

The primary is like a mini election which decides which presidential candidate from each party the state backs.

If an appeal is lodged to the US Supreme Court by January 4, which is almost certain, the Colorado Supreme Court has said the primary ballot “will continue to be required to include President Trump’s name” pending a final decision.

It’s possible the Supreme Court won’t hand down a verdict until after the March primary meaning Mr Trump’s name will remain on the ballot and Colorado voters will be able to opt for him.

Constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School Justin Levitt told the US’ National Public Radio that so long as the early January deadline was met there was a “99.9 per cent chance” that Mr Trump will still be an option for Colorado voters in the primary.

“The immediate impact is very unlikely to be determinative in the primary,” he said.

If he wins the primary – and eventually goes onto become the Republican candidate – it will be extraordinary if Coloradans can’t vote for him.

But if the Supreme Court does move quickly and upholds Colorado’s decision any votes in his name will be void.

Another option for the Republican Party facing that outcome is simply to opt out of the primary process completely.

It could choose to run a more limited “caucus” instead which would be done within the party and wouldn’t be affected by the court’s decision.

“If the (ruling) does not go in our favour, we’ll plan to do a caucus,” said Dave Williams, the chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

But that comes with risk organisationally and also legally as it could break Colorado law to switch from a primary election to a caucus this close to the polling date. That could lead to yet another court case.

Reason Trump could still win

Even if Mr Trump’s nightmare comes true, however, he may still be laughing.

If he is completely scrubbed from the primary and presidential ballots in Colorado and none of the state’s six million people can vote for him – Mr Trump could still win the presidential election next November.

That’s due to the US’ complex system for electing presidents which is decided not on total votes cast nationwide but on 270 Electoral College votes.

In most states, the candidate that wins the most votes, even by a whisker, gets all its Electoral College votes.

Colorado is almost a sure fire win for the Democrats with Joe Biden comfortably beating Donald Trump in 2020.

It’s not a swing state and Mr Trump was unlikely to nab its nine Electoral College votes anyway.

The election will be won or lost in swing states like Georgia, Florida and Iowa – not Colorado.

So it’s possible that Mr Trump’s name will be nowhere to be seen in Colorado and yet he could still win the battle for the White House.