As jarring as it's been to witness the anti-democratic, one-two punch in which a court in Colorado and an unelected bureaucrat in Maine decided Donald Trump cannot appear on primary election ballots, there are many more states where litigation is underway to ban the candidate who's currently leading the national race.
In addition to Colorado and Maine, there are currently active lawsuits challenging Trump's eligibility in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to a New York Times survey of the situation.
Together, the states where Trump's status is under active challenge account for 269 electoral votes -- in a game where you need 270 to win.
While there's a lot of red on that map, it understates the scope of the phenomenon. These are only the states where either officials have decided Trump can't appear on a ballot, or where litigation is currently underway.
Expect other states to turn "red" in a bad way. Some of them are states like Michigan and Minnesota, where challenges to Trump's appearance on primary ballots have been dismissed. Those rulings didn't cover the general election, so look for those plaintiffs to crawl out of their litigation graves after the GOP primaries.
That is, unless a Supreme Court ruling first puts an end to all this madness, in which Democratic judges and officials are banning Trump on the bogus basis that he engaged in an insurrection against the United States government on Jan. 6, 2021, and is therefore barred by the 14th Amendment.
Written to block Confederate officials from US government service, here's the full text of the provision at issue:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Trump has never been charged, much less convicted, of engaging in insurrection. Aside from that due process dimension, and the fact that Jan 6 didn't even begin to approach an "insurrection" in the first place, there's an argument to be made that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to the office of President.
The RealClearPolitics polling average has Trump beating Biden, 46.8% to 44.5%. A December Bloomberg/Morning Consult Pro survey found Trump leading Biden in seven surveyed battleground states: North Carolina (+11), Georgia (+7), Wisconsin (+6), Nevada (+5), Michigan (+4), Arizona (+3) and Pennsylvania (+1). That survey used a ballot that included Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein.
In this distinctly Orwellian age we're living in, it's only suitable that multiple challenges are being led by a group called Free Speech for People; their website invites you to "join the fight for free and fair elections."
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