We’re already seeing how chaotic the 2024 election is going to be

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The 2024 presidential election year, which will be marked by simultaneous campaign and courtroom dramas, is off to a confusing and chaotic start.

The climax of a long primary campaign in which one current and one former Republican governor have emerged to challenge former President Donald Trump is complicated by serious questions about whether Trump will appear on primary ballots in every state.

After the US Supreme Court late last month agreed not to quickly rule on whether he has immunity from criminal prosecution, Trump now wants the court to fast-track the ballot question and ensure that voters have a right to see him on every ballot.

It’s a bizarre irony that the government is currently prosecuting Trump for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and disenfranchise voters while Trump is arguing that keeping him off the ballot in 2024 disenfranchises voters.

Trump remains on Colorado ballot for now

The first presidential primary contest – the Iowa caucuses – occurs in about 10 days and officially kicks off the monthslong, delegate-massing game by which candidates become a major party presidential candidate.

Trump, for now, remains on the Colorado primary ballot, even after the Colorado Supreme Court’s December ruling that he should be constitutionally ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.” The former president on Wednesday formally asked the US Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado ruling.

Trump similarly remains on the ballot in Maine, where the secretary of state has ruled Trump ineligible but an appeal is pending in state court.

There is also a challenge to Trump’s eligibility in Oregon. Illinois and Massachusetts became the latest states on Thursday as a liberal advocacy group, which frequently works with anti-Trump Republican voters, has tried to use state election rules to question Trump’s eligibility.

Other states, as CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Kristen Holmes reported, have rejected challenges to Trump’s qualification.

Colorado’s timeline

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, plans to certify names for the primary ballot on Friday so that they can be printed by counties and sent to military and overseas voters later in January. Early voting in that state begins in late February and the primary itself is on March 5, Super Tuesday.

CNN’s Abby Phillip asked Griswold Wednesday what would happen if the US Supreme Court were to uphold the Colorado Supreme Court’s December ruling after Trump’s name was already printed on ballots.

“In that situation, if voters cast a ballot or a vote for someone who is disqualified, we would not be able to count those votes,” Griswold said.

The conservative-dominated US Supreme Court, where a third of the justices were nominated by Trump, has a laundry list of Trump-related questions piling up but has so far shown no interest in taking things out of order.

Increasing likelihood of criminal trial delay

The Supreme Court already rejected one Trump-related, fast-track request. Special counsel Jack Smith had asked justices to quickly decide the validity of Trump’s claim that he should essentially be immune from prosecution for anything he did as president. Instead, justices will allow that argument, which is related to Trump’s federal prosecution for 2020 election interference, to percolate up through appeals courts.

The court’s rejection of Smith’s request increased the possibility that Trump’s slate of four separate criminal trials could be delayed. The federal election interference case currently has a trial date of March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, the biggest date on the presidential primary calendar.

Role reversal

Trump’s strategy is to delay his trials. His attorneys argued Thursday that Smith should be potentially be held in contempt of court for continuing to submit filings in the case while an appeals court considers Trump’s immunity claim.

Anyone used to the normal Republican argument that state governments should get more control over who can take part in their elections will be confused by Trump’s arguments in his own case that Congress should be in charge of who gets to appear on presidential primary ballots.

Iowa time

Republicans in Iowa will decide on January 15 if they’ll back Trump or one of his top two rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, both of whom will try to convince uncommitted, likely caucusgoers during town halls on CNN Thursday night.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny appeared on “Inside Politics” Thursday and told Dana Bash that there do in fact appear to be undecided Republicans in Iowa, even this close to the caucuses and after being inundated with millions upon millions of dollars in ads from the campaigns and the super PACs that support them.

I asked him what he’s hearing from these people who are still making up their mind, and he sent me this email:

While the campaign has been underway for months, many voters are just now taking a closer look at the candidates and the race. The voters we’ve met who are still weighing their decisions are largely those who are looking for an alternative to Donald Trump. The supporters of the former president are more likely to be locked in on their choices.

There are still undecided voters

An undecided Iowa Republican named Doug Stout told Zeleny in Waukee, Iowa, that he doesn’t like the idea that Haley and DeSantis are essentially vying for second in Iowa, since the ultimate goal is the presidency.

But he likes that either DeSantis or Haley could signal a move into the future, “making it a race about tomorrow rather than about the past.”

“President Trump, for the good and the bad of him, wants to make everything about the past,” Stout told Zeleny.

Stout thinks highly of Trump but would rather see Republicans pick a governor.

The caucuses have a spotty record of picking presidents, but they do play an important role in the primary process, as Zeleny told Bash.

“Organization is what matters,” Zeleny told Bash, noting, “You have to turn up at 7:00 at the same time all across the state to your neighborhood precinct locations.”

That, Zeleny said, could be a challenge for Haley, who has improved in recent polling, but has not made Iowa her top focus like DeSantis, who has been building his Iowa organization for more than a year. Haley has put more emphasis on New Hampshire, which conducts its first-in-the-nation primary on January 23.

Haley joked during a campaign event in New Hampshire Wednesday that New Hampshire voters “correct” the Iowa results before her “sweet state of South Carolina brings it home.”

In fact, neither state has a spotless record, as I noted in our What Matters guide to Iowa caucuses published last month:

In an open year, when there’s no incumbent running for a party’s nomination, Iowa has a spotty record at picking the president, particularly for Republicans.

Only one Republican, George W. Bush in 2000, won a contested Iowa face-off and then went on to win the White House.

This is not like any previous open Republican primary, since Trump is running as a former president. Unlike 2016, when he lost the Iowa Republican caucuses to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Trump has a much more organized ground game this year.

Plus, while Haley and DeSantis are vying for uncommitted caucusgoers, Trump’s supporters seem loyal specifically to him.

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