DeSantis Rejects Ramaswamy’s Call to Withdraw from Ballot Over Colorado Trump Ban

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to guests during a campaign rally at the Thunderdome in Newton, Iowa, on Dec. 2, 2023. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s competing for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said that he will not heed fellow presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy’s call to withdraw from the primary ballot in Colorado after the state’s supreme court ruled to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot.

Mr. Ramaswamy condemned the Colorado Supreme Court’s 4–3 ruling, which makes President Trump the first candidate in U.S. history to be deemed ineligible to make a White House bid, and vowed to withdraw from the GOP primary ballot in Colorado.

“I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately—or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country,” Mr. Ramaswamy wrote on X on Dec. 19.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 28, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Mr. DeSantis addressed Mr. Ramaswamy’s call for him to withdraw from the Colorado primary ballot during a Wednesday interview on Newsmax. The Florida Republican said he believes the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the Colorado Supreme Court decision, which he called “political.”

He then rejected Mr. Ramaswamy’s call to withdraw from the ballot, saying, “I think that’s just playing into the left.”

“I’ve qualified for all the ballots. I’m competing in all the states, and I’m going to accumulate the delegates necessary. That’s the whole name of the game in this situation,” Mr. DeSantis said.

President Trump’s attorneys have said they would appeal the Colorado court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, while his legal spokesperson, Alina Habba, said in a statement that she believes the ruling “will not stand, and we trust that the Supreme Court will reverse this unconstitutional order.”

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom during his civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Nov. 6, 2023. Curtis Means/Pool/Getty Images

The Ruling

The Colorado Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 ruling centered on a section of the 14th Amendment that bars officials who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Specifically, it’s based on an interpretation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which is known as the disqualification clause, which states that no person shall hold office if they have “previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States” and engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution.

The left-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the Colorado Secretary of State to block President Trump from appearing on the ballot, arguing that “officer of the United States” would surely cover the highest office in the federal government, and so the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause should apply.

However, Colorado 2nd District Court Judge Sarah Wallace said in a 100-plus page ruling that there was “scant evidence” that that was the case, noting that the authors of the 14th Amendment specifically listed offices, with the presidency not among them.

Judge Wallace did, however, find that President Trump engaged in an “insurrection,” and, on appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. president is a public “officer,” and so the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause does apply.

The unprecedented ruling makes Colorado the first and only state to disqualify President Trump from appearing on a state primary ballot. It also makes President Trump the first candidate in U.S. history to be declared ineligible to run for the White House.

The Reactions

Besides Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. DeSantis, other Trump rivals for the Republican nomination criticized the Colorado Supreme Court decision.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie both spoke out against the court’s decision.

Ms. Haley said in Iowa after a campaign event on Dec. 19 that she doesn’t think the courts should be blocking the former president’s path to the White House.

“I will tell you that I don’t think Donald Trump needs to be president. I think I need to be president. I think that’s good for the country,” Ms. Haley said. “But I will beat him fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions. We need voters to make these decisions.”

Mr. Christie released a statement criticizing the ruling and saying that the voters should be the ones to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House.

“What I will say is I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court,” he said. “I think he should be prevented from being the president of the United States by the voters of this country.”

Also, independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. criticized the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision as contrary to democratic norms and values.

“Trump blocked from the ballot in Colorado,” he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “When a court in another country disqualifies an opposition candidate from running, we say, ‘That’s not a real democracy.’ Now it’s happening here.”

Meanwhile, CREW praised the ruling in a call for donations to keep funding its legal fight against President Trump as he appeals the decision to the nation’s highest court.

“CREW successfully barred Trump from the Colorado ballot,” the group said.

“This is a monumental win—but it’s not over. Trump has made clear he’s going to try to overturn this decision,” the group added.