Why SC’s Haley blasted Colorado decision to ban her biggest rival Trump from primary ballot
Presidential candidate Nikki Haley along with several other 2024 GOP contenders blasted the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to block former President Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot.
In an Iowa town hall late Tuesday, Haley said the Colorado Supreme Court overstepped in deciding to disqualify Trump from Colorado’s presidential primary ballot — a decision based on Trump’s alleged role in sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Haley’s rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy also were critical of the ruling.
“I will beat him fair and square,” Haley told a crowd of supporters Tuesday night in Agency, Iowa. “We don’t need to have judges making these decisions. We need voters to make these decisions. The last thing we want is judges telling us who can and can’t be on the ballot.”
Trump, who has steadily led the 2024 Republican presidential candidate field, recently widened his lead according to a December Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll, finding Trump ahead of his opponents by 51% among likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa — home of the first presidential primary contest. DeSantis trails at 19%, Haley at 16%, Ramaswamy at 5% and Christie at 4%.
Still, Trump’s rivals say they’re not interested in shortcuts and want Trump to remain on the Colorado primary ballot to face him fair and square.
DeSantis called on the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Colorado decision and blamed “the left” for the high court’s decision in Colorado, saying, “The Left invokes ‘democracy’ to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds,” on the social media platform X.
Ramaswamy, who, unlike his contenders, has routinely defended Trump, said in a video statement that he will remove his name from the Colorado primary ballot until Trump is permitted to be on the ballot. Ramaswamy then called for Christie, DeSantis and Haley to do the same — none of whom, so far, despite their condemnation of the court’s decision, have pledged to do so.
The Colorado Supreme Court “has just tried to bar President Trump from the Colorado ballot using an unconstitutional maneuver that is a bastardization of the 14th Amendment to our U.S. Constitution,” Ramaswamy said in the video.
In a 4-3 decision, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot because of the 14th Amendment, which bars certain officials from holding office again if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.
Even Christie, who has been, perhaps, most critical of Trump during the last three presidential debates, said the Colorado decision was the wrong move.
“I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court,” Christie said at a recent campaign event, according to NBC News. “I think he should be prevented from being president of the United States by the voters of this country.”
