Maine has become the second U.S. state to attempt to ban former President Donald Trump from running on the ballot at next year’s Republican primaries. The decision was made by a Democrat, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who claimed that Trump incited an insurrection after the 2020 election.
Previously, judges appointed by Democratic governors on the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump from serving as U.S. president and appearing on the primary ballot in Colorado because of his role in the events of January 6, 2021. Trump will however remain on the ballot in Colorado as the state Republican Party has appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the US Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” the Colorado Secretary of State said in a press release.
Donald Trump has not been convicted of any crime related to the “insurrection” the rulings are alluding to, and the former president’s lawyers have vowed to appeal the decisions. Similar attempts to disqualify Trump in other states have been rejected. It was confirmed on Thursday, December 28th that Trump’s name will be on the ballot in California, despite calls from the state’s lieutenant governor, Democrat Eleni Kounalakis, to remove him.
The U.S. Supreme Court—with its 6-3 conservative majority— will make the final decision to resolve questions about Trump’s eligibility nationwide.
Donald Trump is the favourite to win the Republican primaries, and latest polls suggest he would also beat President Joe Biden by a 2-3% point margin. Trump is facing a myriad of legal battles, all initiated by Democratic prosecutors—lawsuits that have been called politically motivated by Republicans.
The Trump campaign was quick to denounce the Maine decision.
“The Maine Secretary of State is a former ACLU attorney, a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden. We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the New York Post.
“It’s unconstitutional. It’s monarchical. It’s anti-American. But it’s happening. Time to wake up,” entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, one of Trump’s Republican rivals tweeted, vowing to remove himself from any ballot where any of his competitors are forcibly removed.
Another Trump rival, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, said “The idea that one bureaucrat in an executive position can simply unilaterally disqualify someone from office—that turns on its head, every notion of constitutional due process that this country has always abided by for over 200 years.”
The criticism wasn’t just along normal partisan lines: Jared Golden, a Democrat member of the House of Representatives from Maine said “We are a nation of laws, and therefore until he [Trump] is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot.”
