America's Talking - Colorado Supreme Court Bans Trump From 2024 Ballot

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

The Colorado state Supreme Court voted 3-4 Tuesday to block former President Donald Trump from receiving votes on the 2024 presidential ballot, saying he is disqualified because he “engaged in an insurrection,” a reference to his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol protests gone awry. The majority opinion acknowledged the U.S. Supreme Court could weigh in, and as a result postponed the effect of its ruling until Jan. 4, giving the court about two weeks. The Colorado secretary of state has until Jan. 5 to certify the 2024 ballot. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America and Focus. I'm Cole McNeely, General Manager of America's Talking Network. Joining me today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Casey, we had some big news this week that surrounds the 2024 presidential election. The Colorado State Supreme Court voted three, four Tuesday to block former President Donald Trump from receiving votes on the 2024 presidential ballot saying he's disqualified because he engaged in an insurrection, reference to January 6, obviously. Casey, it's not an incredibly complex story, but it's a story that could have a lot of implications beyond just the state of Colorado. Yeah, I mean, a lot of implications and maybe not too complex, but highly controversial. Of course, there is immediate backlash over this decision as to be expected when the Republican frontrunners chances at the White House are endangered. Now, there's a lot of levels to this. First off, Colorado is not a state that,

you know, Trump, Trump has never won Colorado in a general election. Let's say that first. So, um, that that's an important fact to remember. But it's not just isolated to Colorado. Maine is considering doing the same thing now as is California. And if this success continues, then, you know, and success, I guess, in those who oppose Trump, if you put it that way. But, um, then you could see other states do it. And if then, if you saw a state, you know, of course, California is not a state. Trump is really expected to win in a general either. But if you saw a state like Texas or a big red state that could Trump really has to win to win the general election, if you see a contest rise there to Trump being on the ballot, it could, this could really get out of control. And the other thing,

you know, what to look for down the road on this is the Supreme Court justices may not be able to enjoy their Christmas holiday quite as much as you and I, Cole, because they're probably going to be having to look over and review whether they're going to take up this case, because the ruling from Colorado takes effect, I believe, January 4th, is the fourth or 5th, which is the day before the Colorado Secretary of State, which, who oversees, you know, the elections in that state, has to sign off on the ballot, in a ballot that either includes Trump or doesn't. And so the Colorado State Supreme Court acknowledged that there's a high likelihood the Supreme Court will want to look at this case. And so they said, we'll give two weeks before this takes effect.

And so I think it's very likely in the next week or two, the Supreme Court is going to weigh in. And of course, whichever way they go will have, you know, down the ballot, literally, I guess, implications across the states. And Casey, I'm going to pull from your story that you wrote at the center square.com here. The Colorado Secretary of State, as you said, has January 5th, is certified the ballot. And the court in its majority, it wrote that, quote, we are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions down before us, likewise mindful of our duty to apply the law without fear and favor or without being swayed by public reactions to decisions that the law mandates we reach. And, you know, that was kind of part of that conversation of them giving wiggle room, basically,

for the Supreme Court a couple weeks to come in and make a decision on this if the Supreme Court would like to. Now, Casey, you mentioned the fact that this could create a ripple effect to a degree across different states around the country. Beyond kind of the general election in 2024, this is creating waves inside of the GOP primary, which is still occurring, believe it or not. I think if you look at the polls, it doesn't look like much of a primary with Donald Trump leading at, you know, depending upon what polls you look at up 30, 40 points. But, you know, Governor Ron DeSantis, who's obviously the jockeying for that second place. position third place, right there neck and neck with Nikki Haley most of the time. Desantis, you know, he came out and, you know, he, I think he was critical of this and probably in a couple of ways because as much as, yes, this keeps off, you know, Trump off of the Colorado

ballot, this is probably going to have a similar political reaction that the indictments had for Trump, which boosted him in the polls in the primary, which I think government. DeSantis even came out this week and was, you know, criticizing the indictments because of how it actually helped the former president and the GEOP primary and just shot him to the top and has kept him there. Yeah. It's this funny Trump paradox that those who oppose Trump the hardest somehow often lift him up in popularity.

And so we saw that in 2016, in 2015, when the campaign, you know, began when much of the media was very opposed to Trump and actually thought he had no chance of winning. And so they thought that they could submarine the Republican primary by propping Trump up and guaranteeing his loss. And then when he won the primary, they went after him mercilessly. But in retrospect, after he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, there was a lot of criticism of the media because they spent so much time talking about Trump and criticizing him that it put all the focus on him. And most, I think many people in hindsight felt like the media's constant focus. albeit negative on Trump actually helped him win in some interesting way.

And then I think we're seeing the same thing here, as you mentioned, which these the legal challenges and the law enforcement, difficulties that Trump are having, propelling him. And people may not remember this, but last year, DeSantis looked like in the polls, he had a really good chance of catching up some ground on Trump and maybe beating him. And he was building momentum. Trump was looking really weak.

And then something happened, Cole. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. And you look at the polls immediately after the raid of Mar-Lago. That is the end of DeSantis' presidential ambitions, and Trump, his polls absolutely sore after that. And so I think it's totally fair to say the FBI raid of Mar-Lago ended DeSantis' presidential hopes. And so it's interesting to think of it. Could this keep happening here?

And also, one thing I'll say before tossing back to you is, you know, of course there are legal problems with all this that Trump may or may not be successful, and he does have nearly 100 criminal charges. So assuming that he's able to kind of stand of jail and all those things, the reason politically I think these attacks don't stick to Trump as much as one, they've thrown everything at him over the last few years, and for one reason or another, it hasn't stuck. But also because the leading Democrat, President Joe Biden, has his own whole host of, you know, questionable corruption allegations. And so it's kind of seeming like, well, yeah, they both have probably, who knows really what they did. And they're both accused of a lot of things. And so maybe they just

kind of cancel out in an interesting way from the political side. Of course, legally, it doesn't work that way. But it'll be interesting to watch. And of course, it'll all be settled next year in 24. And to throw another wrinkle in there, I think part of it is Trump's brand. And what I mean by that is he has branded himself from the time he entered the GOP primary in 2015. He branded himself as the anti-establishment and not even in that kind of traditional, you know, kind of a Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders way, right? Not that we're a little bit more to the end of the wings of the party or something like that.

he branded himself as somebody that was going against establishment. So any time the quote establishment flashes back at him, it just feeds into his brand. That's what he has been, is that he's going to go against the people in power and, you know, and not saying it's just, you know, to frame it that way. But I think that's why when it, he gets more and more criticism from what are considered those traditional you know, arenas of power. That's why he keeps seeing his numbers grow. Casey, you mentioned his, you know, we're looking at a race right now.

And I'm pulling up 538's polling because they have a good aggregating system looking at these primary polls. Donald Trump sitting at 62% in these polls across the board has Ron DeSantis at 12, Nikki Haley sitting at 11. Casey, you're referencing how this was a tight race at one point. I mean, we go back less than a year. We go back 10 months in February. You had Ron DeSantis at about 35 percent and Donald Trump at about 43 percent in these polls that were aggregated together.

And it has, I mean, if you look at that chart, Desantis has just plummeted. And I think some of that, you know, could be the candidate of DeSantis. But there is no doubt that the attention, this kind of backlash to the former president, Donald Trump, is significantly helping his campaign. And if more of these, you know, Supreme courts come out, state Supreme Courts come out and do what Colorado did, you can't help but imagine at least in the primary. Who knows in the general? But at least in the primary that that would all but lock up Donald Trump as the Republican nominee. Yeah, I mean, I agree. And I don't think anything aside from Trump being taken away in handcuffs is going to affect this Republican primary at this point.

I kind of agree with you. And even then, I think it was like 1910. There was a, I think the Socialist Party candidate for the United States. The one they put up, he was in jail. He was arrested. And he got, you know, 15% of the vote or something like this. So there is some precedent for something like that. that happening.

That's more the DeSantis has now. That is true. That is true. And I think 2024 is going to be one for, you know, no matter what happens, I have a feeling it will be one for the history books when it comes to, you know, political, you know, phenomenon, things like that. So, well, Casey, our listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecenter square.com.

There's going to be plenty more coming on the 2024 election. We're getting right into the heat of it. primary start in a couple months here. So keep up with all that at the center square.com for Casey Harper. I'm Cole McNeely. Thanks for listening and please subscribe. Knowledge is power and you deserve to know what happens in your state government. That's why the nonprofit Franklin News Foundation is bringing you straight news journalism

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