Trump was disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which bars anyone engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding federal office. This was the first time Section 3 was used to disqualify a presidential candidate.

Here’s what Colorado disqualification means for Trump:

The ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday only applies to Colorado. Moreover, it only mentions the state’s primary election on March 5 — when Republican voters will choose their candidate for US president.

This means, Trump might not appear on the ballot in Colorado for that vote and he can still able to run in other Republican primaries, the Guardian reported. The Colorado court ruling does not directly address the general election.

However, Colorado temporarily stayed its ruling until January 4, which would allow the US Supreme Court until then to decide whether to take the case, the Guardian reported. 

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign said it will appeal to the US Supreme Court against the Colorado ruling.

This would probably make a historic case because: If the US Supreme Court rules “directly on whether Trump is disqualified under the Constitution, their ruling would apply in every state, not only Colorado”, Bloomberg reported.

The report added that given the unprecedented nature of the case and the court’s composition, “it’s likely that the justices will overturn the Colorado decision”.

Could the ruling impact the 2024 US election?

Even if the ruling survives Supreme Court review, it could be inconsequential to the outcome of the November 2024 election. This is because Trump does not need to win Colorado and is not expected to, given its strong Democratic leanings, Reuters said.

Colorado has nine of the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency. Joe Biden had won the state by more than 13 percentage points in the 2020 election. According to the BBC, Trump is far ahead of his Republican rivals, and therefore, he can still win his party’s nomination without competing in Colorado.

On the contrary, BBC also reported which noted that the Colorado case might have “wider implications for the general election”.

There are similar lawsuits seeking to bar Trump from running for 2024 elections. Moreover, there could be more such cases filed in competitive states that Trump must win to prevail. If courts in more competitive states followed suit on Tuesday’s ruling, Trump’s White House bid in 2024 could face serious problems.

“While none of those courts would be bound by the Colorado decision, judges will likely study it closely while reaching their own conclusions,” Reuters reported.

So far, Trump has faced multiple 14th Amendment challenges in various states. Lawsuits citing the 14th Amendment were dismissed by nine courts: in Michigan, by the district court in Colorado — leading to the appeals battle there — and by the Minnesota Supreme Court, a district court in Washington and federal courts in Arizona, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Florida, reports said.

Trump is currently the front-runner in the Republican Party’s nomination process for the race for the White House in 2024. Trump’s campaign has vowed to appeal against the “flawed” ruling by the Supreme Court of Colorado in the US Supreme Court.

The fallout

Apart from this, Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy pledged to exit the GOP primary ballot in Colorado unless former US President Donald Trump is reinstated.

“I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal manoeuvre, which will have disastrous consequences for our country,” Ramaswamy posted on X, calling out his fellow candidates in the GOP presidential primary.

Another prominent GOP presidential candidate, Chris Christie, asserted that it is the voters, not the courts, who should determine whether Trump should be “prevented” from seeking re-election to the White House.

(With inputs from agencies)

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Published: 21 Dec 2023, 06:05 AM IST