US election 2024
Another US state wants to exclude Trump from the primary election
The first decision to remove Trump from the ballot was made in Colorado. photo
© Alex Brandon/AP/dpa
Donald Trump wants to run again in the US presidential election in November. Now a third state is questioning whether it can participate in the primaries. The Supreme Court must decide.
The reason given was that Trump had disqualified himself from the office of president because of his behavior in connection with the Capitol attack. Similar decisions had previously been made in the states of Colorado and Maine. The country’s Supreme Court is now dealing with the question. A decision there is pending.
Trump wants to run again for the Republicans in the US presidential election at the beginning of November. Anyone who wants to run as a presidential candidate must first prevail in internal party primaries. Plaintiffs have been trying for some time in various states to prevent Trump from participating in the primaries and to have the 77-year-old’s name removed from ballot papers.
Trump’s name remains on the ballot for now
The Republican had legally defended himself against the previous decisions in Colorado and Maine – and his team immediately announced that they would also challenge the decision in Illinois. “This is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal,” his campaign team said in a statement. For now, Trump’s name will remain on the ballot in the state. The Republican primary in Illinois is March 19th.
The first decision to remove Trump from the ballot was made in Colorado. The Republican turned to the country’s highest court to overturn the Colorado ruling – it now stands as a quasi-representative of similar decisions in Maine and Illinois. At the beginning of February there was a hearing at the Supreme Court on the sensitive legal and political question. The judges there were skeptical about the possibility of excluding the ex-president from the highest office in the state. It is unclear when the Court will make a decision on this.
Trump supporters attack the Capitol
The background to the dispute is the unprecedented attack on the US parliament building three years ago: Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Congress met there to formally confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Trump had previously incited his supporters during a speech with unsubstantiated claims that he had been deprived of his election victory through massive fraud.
Trump opponents filed lawsuits across the country, arguing that the Republican had lost the right to run for president again with his contribution to the attack. They refer to the so-called ban on insurrection in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Accordingly, no one may hold a higher office in the state who has previously taken part in an uprising against the state as an official.