The Colorado’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that former United States President, Donald Trump, is ineligible to run for the White House because of his role in the 2021 assault on the Capitol by his supporters and should be removed from the state’s primary ballot.
The historic decision based on the 14th Amendment, barring Trump from the presidential primary ballot, sets up a battle before the nation’s highest court about the fate of next year’s election.
The ruling applies only to the state’s March 5 Republican primary, but its conclusion would likely also affect Trump’s status for the Nov. 5 general election. Nonpartisan U.S. election forecasters view Colorado as safely Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely carry the state regardless of Trump’s fate.
In a 4-3 ruling that will soon be appealed and that is likely to inspire fierce criticism from Trump’s supporters and vocal applause from those who have condemned his behavior around Jan. 6 a majority of Colorado’s seven justices wrote that the former president “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 characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary,” the justices wrote.
