Donald Trump should also disappear from the ballot in these 14 states

Accusations of insurrection - Donald Trump should also disappear from the ballot in these 14 states

The fact that Shenna Bellows is a Democrat should reinforce Donald Trump and his team in their view that they are victims of a political witch hunt. The 48-year-old Bellows holds the office of Secretary of State in the east coast state of Maine; she is a kind of Secretary of the Interior and therefore responsible for organizing elections in the US state. In this role, she has now had the ex-president removed from the Republican party's primary election list. Reason: Trump is "not qualified to be president" due to his involvement in the Capitol storm on January 6, 2021.

Did Donald Trump instigate a "riot"?

Maine, where conservatives have no chance of winning a majority, is the second state after Colorado to exclude the former head of state from the upcoming primaries in this way. There, the Supreme Court recently also argued on the basis of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution(read more about this here), according to which people who have instigated a "rebellion" against the constitution must be excluded from election to public office.

However, the judges suspended their own ruling in order to await a fundamental decision by the Supreme Court in Washington. In Michigan, on the other hand, a court had rejected a similar attempt, but on formal grounds and not on substantive grounds. There, as well as in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, Trump remains on the ballot for his party's primary election. Republicans in Maine and Colorado will vote on their candidate on March 5, "Super Tuesday", and Michigan a week earlier.

Will Trump's favorite status change now?

The US primary election system begins in mid-January and continues into the early summer. Each party in each of the 50 states votes on which of its candidates will enter the race for the US presidency. Among the Democrats, incumbent Joe Biden is considered the frontrunner, while Donald Trump is the undisputed leader among the Republican candidates. His election was previously considered as good as certain.

Whether the removal of one or two names from the list will change Trump's status as favorite is unlikely, but also still unclear. Attempts are currently underway in 14 other states to have the former president removed from the primary lists: Arizona, Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The "swing states" will be decisive in the election

Due to the de facto two-party system in the USA, the election result in many states is often determined long before the actual vote. Just as New York would never elect a Republican to the White House, a Democrat has no chance in Texas. The ballot is therefore decided in a few swing states. These will certainly include Arizona and Wisconsin next year, and perhaps Nevada. If Donald Trump is not allowed to stand for election here, his chances are likely to be severely weakened.

Whether it comes to that now depends largely on the US Supreme Court. The cases concerning the ex-president are already piling up there. Most recently, for example, the nine judges referred the question of whether Trump enjoys immunity as head of state back to the federal courts. The non-decision was a success for the Republican, as a lot of time will pass before the matter is finally clarified, during which he will not have to fear a trial.

Bad memory of 2000

In the electoral roll appeal, the highest judges will have to decide on several questions at once: Whether a "riot" actually occurred on January 6, 2021, whether Trump's conduct violated the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and whether his exclusion from the primary election is justified.

Legal experts believe that the Supreme Court will overturn rulings like the one from Colorado - especially if the primaries have already progressed. "I assume that the judges want to avoid any appearance of overturning election results with their decisions," says law professor Jessica Levinson, for example. The presidential election in 2000, when the constitutional judges stopped the recount in Florida and made George W. Bush the winner, is still a bad memory.