How DeSantis, Haley could benefit from Colorado ruling kicking Trump off the ballot

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday disqualifying Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot set off an explosive response from Republicans, who were quick to cast the decision as a blatantly political abuse of judicial power.

But the 4-3 decision by a divided state court also underscored the very real legal challenges looming over Trump’s White House bid — challenges that some Republicans say could pose a threat to the former president’s ability to run for office, while at the same time giving his GOP rivals an opportunity to step in should Trump be forced out of the race.

“Beyond anything else, I think, there’s always been the legitimate possibility that legal issues will stymy the Trump candidacy,” said Tom Rath, a longtime GOP consultant and former New Hampshire attorney general. “And you want to be in a place to take advantage of something if and when it happens.”

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling hinges on an interpretation of a provision in the 14th Amendment that disqualifies people who have engaged in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution after previously taking an oath to defend it from running for office.

The decision holds that Trump — who leads his opponents by wide margins in virtually every poll — incited an insurrection with his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s campaign immediately slammed the ruling as a Democratic “scheme to interfere in an election” and said it would appeal the decision to the U.S Supreme Court. The Colorado Supreme Court put a stay on its ruling until Jan. 4 to allow time for the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.

Barry Richard, a lawyer who represented former President George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida election recount, said shortly after the ruling came down Tuesday night that the U.S. Supreme Court is almost certain to take up Trump’s appeal.

“This particular court hasn’t been shy about taking up controversial issues anyway,” Richard said. “And given the magnitude of this case, I’d say there’s a greater likelihood than normal that they’ll take it up, because it certainly seems like something that needs to be addressed at the national level.”

If the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately hears the case, it will force the justices to weigh in on whether Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, is eligible to seek the White House — a decision that would affect the 2024 election in all 50 states.

“If the Supreme Court takes this up and makes a quick decision, then you’re guaranteed that this will be brought up in the other states,” Richard said.

In the wake of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday, Trump’s 2024 rivals largely defended the former president, accusing the court of politicizing the judiciary.

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Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who’s competing with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in the GOP presidential primary, said that Trump’s eligibility to serve another term in the White House should be decided by voters rather than the courts.

“I want to see this in the hands of the voters,” Haley, a former South Carolina governor, told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday. “We’re going to win this the right way, we’re going to do what we need to do, but the last thing we want is judges telling us who can and can’t be on the ballot.”

DeSantis likewise accused the Colorado court of playing politics. But speaking to voters in Iowa on Wednesday morning, he also warned that if Trump becomes the Republican nominee, the 2024 presidential race will be more about court cases and legal challenges than policy issues.

“Do we want to have 2024 to be about ‘this trial, that case, this case,’ having to put hundreds of millions of dollars into legal stuff?” DeSantis asked. “Or do we want 2024 to be about your issues, about the country’s future with a nominee that’s going to be able to prosecute that case against the Left?”

The case in Colorado is only one of several legal entanglements involving Trump. He’s facing a civil fraud case in New York, federal charges related to his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House and a criminal case in Georgia, where he’s charged with violating the state’s anti-racketeering law.

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At the same time, a lawsuit in Michigan also seeks to have Trump disqualified from the state ballot. An appeals court last week affirmed a judge’s ruling that the issue of Trump’s eligibility was a political decision rather than a legal one, effectively blocking challenges to his candidacy. The plaintiff in that case — Free Speech for People — has asked the Michigan Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter.

Saul Anuzis, a Republican consultant and former Michigan GOP chairman, said that the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is a rallying cry for Republicans, regardless of whom they’re supporting in the primary, because it highlights “the unfairness in the process.”

“You don’t have to love Donald Trump to think that he’s being mistreated — that this is a blatantly political move to keep a Republican candidate for president off the ballot,” Anuzis said.

The ruling also puts DeSantis and Haley in something of a bind, Anuzis said, noting that “Trump gets sympathy every time there’s an abuse in the system.”

“Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley deserve every right to make their case to voters across the country, regardless of what the poll numbers look like,” Anuzis said. “But this isn’t helpful. It puts them in a tough spot where they essentially have to defend their main opponent; that Trump is being persecuted.”

Yet with the Iowa caucuses less than five weeks away and Trump leading his closest rivals by staggering margins in both national and state-level polls, the former president’s legal entanglements could remind at least some voters of the mayhem that seems to follow him, said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“Every American has already made up their mind about Donald Trump,” Conant said. “But people who are open to an alternative — someone not named Donald Trump — this just reminds them of the chaos.”