Supreme Court will rule on ex-president’s name on ballot

THE US Supreme Court has said it will rule on whether Donald Trump can be kept off the presidential ballot in Colorado, escalating a row over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result to the highest level.

The nine justices said they would issue a ruling on the legality of the state’s decision to prevent Mr Trump from running, using an obscure part of the US Constitution that bans candidates who have “engaged in insurrection”.

After Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled last month that the 14th Amendment disqualified Mr Trump for running for president, the state of Maine followed with a similar ruling.

The former president applied to have the issue reviewed by the Supreme Court in Washington, in what will become a test case for other states across the nation.

Arguments for the case will be heard early next month, as Republican voters begin to cast their votes in state primaries ahead of the selection of a GOP nominee in the summer.

Mr Trump and the other Republican frontrunners have claimed that preventing the former president from running for a second term amounts to political interference in the election, while his detractors say he should not be allowed to occupy the role because of his alleged involvement in the January 6 riots on Capitol Hill in 2021.

Three of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Mr Trump, but have repeatedly ruled against him in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to both the riots and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.

The news came after Mr Trump’s top Republican rivals turned on him, warning that his criminal cases would jeopardise the GOP’s electoral hopes in November.

Ron DeSantis, 45, and Nikki Haley, 51, amplified their criticism of the Republican frontrunner just under a fortnight before the party’s 2024 primary contest begins. In separate question-and-answer sessions with voters on CNN, the candidates both sounded the alarm over Mr Trump’s four criminal cases.

“Chaos follows him,” Ms Haley told the audience in Iowa, adding: “We can’t have a country in disarray, and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”

Mr DeSantis warned that Mr Trump’s presence in court to fight his 91 criminal counts would “give the Democrats an advantage” if the former president became the Republican candidate.

Mr Trump is facing four cases spanning alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, his handling of classified documents and hush money payments made to a porn star.

The 77-year-old has denied any wrongdoing, and claimed the cases are politically motivated.

That argument has proved compelling among the Republican grassroots base, around 61 per cent support of whom support him, according to polling averages.