Maine booted Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential primary ballot on Thursday, with the state’s top election official ruling that the former commander-in-chief cannot take another shot at the White House under a constitutional clause that bars insurrectionists from holding office.
“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, wrote in her 34-page ruling. “I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”
Trump’s place on the ballot had been challenged by a number of state residents, including a bipartisan coalition of former lawmakers. Bellows found that the evidence they presented adequately demonstrated that the events of Jan. 6, 2021, “occurred at the behest of, and with the knowledge and support of, the outgoing President.”
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“The record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters,” Bellows explained, “and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.”
“I likewise conclude that Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it,” she added.
In a predictably furious statement, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, called the ruling “a hostile assault on American democracy” and Bellows “a virulent leftist and a hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat.”
The spokesman said that the campaign would “quickly” appeal the decision. It is expected to face further legal challenges, as a similar verdict by the Colorado Supreme Court last week already has.
The Colorado Republican Party almost immediately appealed the state high court’s 4-3 decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it on Wednesday to resolve the matter by March 5, a date known as Super Tuesday when Colorado—along with Maine and a dozen other states—are set to hold their Republican primaries.
While the appeal plays out, the Colorado Supreme Court has put its decision on ice. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said Thursday that Trump’s name would be put back on the ballot if the Supreme Court decides to take up the case.
As in Colorado, Bellows suspended the effect of her decision until a ruling had been made on an appeal. Still, she said, citing the Colorado decision directly, a possible Supreme Court decision “does not relieve me of my responsibility to act.”
Her verdict in Maine comes a day after Trump’s attorneys filed an 11th-hour petition asking her to disqualify herself, saying that she had demonstrated “a personal bias” in the case.
In three 2021 tweets, they wrote in a letter, Bellows had called the Capitol riot an “insurrection” and said that Trump should have been impeached.
“She has already concluded that President Trump engaged in insurrection,” the lawyers wrote.
More than a dozen other states currently have pending legal challenges to Trump’s position on the ballot. Hours after the Maine decision, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber announced that she had certified the presidential candidates eligible for the 2024 race, listing Trump’s name among them. The New York Times first reported the publication of the list late Thursday.
Prior to Colorado’s surprise verdict last Wednesday, lower courts in some states like Michigan had tossed out the case. Those decisions are also being appealed.
A ruling by the Supreme Court would decide the matter for the country, likely seeing those challenges shelved once and for all.
