(LifeSiteNews) — Reactions have poured in following the Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday evening decision to prohibit former U.S. President Donald Trump from being listed on the state’s primary ballot in 2024. Trump has slammed the ruling as “election interference” and his team has vowed to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Tuesday evening, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that Trump is ineligible to run for president in 2024 due to his alleged involvement in an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021 and that his name should not appear on state ballots in the primaries, LifeSiteNews reported. However, as Heritage Foundation election law expert Hans von Spakovsky has noted, “no federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in ‘insurrection or rebellion,’” and “the Senate acquitted Trump of that charge in his second impeachment.”
Trump’s campaign immediately slammed the Colorado Court’s ruling as a “flawed decision” handed down in support of “a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden” and promised to “swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision.”
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) December 19, 2023
READ: Colorado Supreme Court declares Trump ineligible for presidency, state’s primary
In a personal response, Trump himself reacted to the news in a post on his social media site Truth Social, calling Tuesday a “sad day in America.”
In a message sent in all capital letters Wednesday morning, Trump said “no such thing has ever happened in our country before. Banana Republic?? Election interference!!!”
He said that “Biden should drop all of these fake political indictments against me, both criminal [and] civil,” adding that “every case I am fighting is the work of the DOJ and White House.”
Trump is far from alone in condemning the decision, which is likely to spark similar efforts in left-wing states nationwide as Trump appears to surpass Biden in the polls heading into the 2024 face-off.
The Republican Party of Colorado promised Tuesday night to cancel its primary in the state if Trump’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot. The party made the statement in response to Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who vowed to drop out of the Colorado primary if Trump’s name doesn’t appear on the ballot.
“I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot until Trump is also allowed to be on the ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country,” Ramaswamy said on X.
The Colorado GOP advised Ramaswamy that he wouldn’t need to do so since they will themselves withdraw in that event.
You won’t have to because we will withdraw from the Primary as a Party and convert to a pure caucus system if this is allowed to stand.
— Colorado Republican Party (@cologop) December 20, 2023
Trump’s fellow GOP presidential hopefuls also quickly weighed in on the ruling.
Trump’s 2024 Republican runner-up Ron DeSantis called on the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the decision and said the Colorado ruling cuts against Democrats’ constant invocations of the need to protect “democracy.”
“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,” DeSantis said. “SCOTUS should reverse.”
GOP hopeful Nikki Haley also said she didn’t want “judges making these decisions” and that she wanted to “beat” Trump “fair and square.”
“We need voters to make these decisions,” she said.
And the reaction wasn’t exclusive to Republican presidential candidates.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a former Democrat who is now running for the presidency in 2024 as an independent, said “Every American should be troubled by the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Trump from the ballot.”
“When any candidate is deprived of his right to run, the American people are deprived of their right to choose,” Kennedy said.
Every American should be troubled by the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Trump from the ballot.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) December 20, 2023
Republican lawmakers also expressed their thoughts about the decision, which is likely to create serious upsets in the 2024 race.
“Apparently democracy is when judges tell people they’re not allowed to vote for the candidate leading in the polls?” reacted Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance. “This is disgraceful.”
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said the Colorado decision was “garbage” and that the U.S. Supreme Court “WILL reverse it.”
This ruling is garbage.
This WILL be appealed to the Supreme Court & the Supreme Court WILL reverse it.
To every Dem & media outlet saying “save Democracy,” this is a test:
Will you denounce these partisan judges trying to PREVENT THE VOTERS from choosing the next President? https://t.co/pFL94zNjtQ
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 20, 2023
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio declared on X that the “U.S. has put sanctions on other countries for doing exactly what the Colorado Supreme Court has done today.”
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah shared a similar sentiment, asserting that the U.S. would “threaten sanctions against countries that had their courts exclude a challenger to protect the incumbent.”
We’d threaten sanctions against countries that had their courts exclude a challenger to protect the incumbent.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) December 20, 2023
And some have suggested that the decision will blow up in Democrats’ faces.
“One thing is clear: this will help Donald Trump. Do these Colorado clowns in black robes not realize that?” Sen. Lee said.
Trump pollster Jim McLaughlin told Politico that the “American people have a great sense of fairness, and these are the people that run around saying that Trump’s a threat to Democracy, and they’re getting him thrown off the ballot.”
“They are not giving the American people the right to decide,” he said. “This, I think, is going to backfire.”