Last Time Democrats Took GOP Presidential Nominee Off the Ballot Was 1860
The Democrats and their allies are trying to get former President Donald Trump’s name removed from as many state ballots as possible going into 2024, including the election-deciding swing states.
The last time Democrats pulled such a stunt was in the presidential election of 1860, when Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln’s name did not appear on most Southern states’ ballots.
He was still able to win the election with a plurality of the popular vote, but it illustrates how far Democrats were willing to go to keep a candidate they did not agree with from even being considered by voters.
Ironically, this time around they’re trying to do it with a post-Civil War amendment that no Democrats voted for in Congress.
Following the Civil War, Republicans passed the 14th Amendment in 1868 to guarantee the newly freed slaves equal protection under the law.
Section 3 of the amendment made it unlawful for those who took an oath of office to support the Constitution of the United States and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same” to hold federal office unless Congress — by a two-thirds majority — votes to remove the disability.
What Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans are trying to establish through state courts in Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan, so far, is that Trump engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021, and therefore should be ineligible to serve.
They are hanging their case on the conduct of some of the protesters in the Capitol incursion who became violent in an attempt to disrupt the Electoral College vote.
Liberal constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe told ABC News the language of the 14th Amendment is “very clear cut.”
“The odds are that at least one state court is going to decide that the language of the 14th Amendment means what it says and says what it means, applying in this obvious case,” he argued.
How can it possibly be “very clear” that Trump engaged in an insurrection when he did not take up arms against the U.S. government or encourage anyone else to do so?
In fact, at the Jan. 6 rally, the 45th president specifically said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
That sounds like he was encouraging them to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and to “peaceably” assemble and “petition the government for redress of grievances.”
That’s the American way.
Trump was just one of many voices questioning the integrity of the 2020 election.
Democrats have questioned the outcome of every presidential election that Republicans won since 2000.
The most vocal among them was 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who suggested the race was “stolen” from her. Is Clinton an insurrectionist?
MUST WATCH: 10 minutes of Democrats denying election results. pic.twitter.com/bJRbzEcIO2
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 23, 2022
Following the 2020 election, Texas and 17 other states sued Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin for not following their own election laws, put in place to ensure the integrity of the vote.
The attorneys general of these states identified the mass mail-out of ballot applications, the elimination of signature requirements, the altering of ballot submission deadlines and the use of a large number of unmanned drop boxes, among other issues that raised serious doubts about the integrity of their elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Texas and its co-plaintiffs did not have standing to sue other states concerning how they conducted their elections.
The high court did not look at the other legal merits of the case, which was true of many other challenges brought.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released in 2022 on the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 incursion found only 20 percent of respondents said they were “very confident” in the integrity of the U.S. electoral system overall.
Another 39 percent said they were “somewhat confident,” 27 percent “not so confident” and 14 percent “not confident at all.” So 80 percent of those surveyed had at least some level of concern about the integrity of our elections.
Though Trump is not the 2024 Republican nominee yet, as Lincoln was in 1860, he is the prohibitive frontrunner.
The FiveThirtyEight daily tracking poll Tuesday showed the 45th president with 56.6 percent support. The next closest GOP candidate was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 14 percent.
The New York Times reported last week the left-wing group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is assisting in bringing the lawsuit to have Trump’s name removed from the primary ballot in Colorado.
CREW lined up four Republicans and two independent voters to be the plaintiffs in the case arguing that Trump’s presence on the GOP primary ballot in the state might help him become the GOP nominee.
These plaintiffs would then be deprived of the ability to “vote for a qualified candidate in the general election.”
In reality, they want Trump off both the primary and general election ballots.
Ben Clements, chairman and senior legal adviser of Free Speech for People, a group bringing some of the lawsuits, said the goal is to have the former president removed from all state ballots.
Clements told ABC News that he believes there is a “very good chance” Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan will all rule on the matter by the end of the year, which would tee up a likely review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Real America’s Voice host Steve Bannon, who was executive director of Trump’s 2016 campaign, identified some swing states in addition to Michigan in which Democrats could succeed at the state court level, including Arizona and Pennsylvania, which have Democratic governors and attorneys general.
Mike Davis, with the Article III Project, told Bannon, “There is no question that this Denver district court judge, Sarah Wallace, is going to disqualify Trump from the Colorado ballots.”
He said the case would then get appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, but it’s “stacked by leftists.”
What is happening in Colorado is so much bigger than President Donald Trump. The lawfare being committed by activist lawyers and activist judges against him are republic-ending tactics.
If the radical left can just remove people from ballots, we are not going to have a country… pic.twitter.com/vvkxnM7svj
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) November 2, 2023
Davis explained it would then fall on the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.
“They’re going to actually have to take a Trump case because this is so much bigger than President Donald Trump. These are republic-ending tactics by the left,” he said.
“They’re doing this right now in the deep-blue state of Colorado to set the legal precedent, and then they’re going to take the show on the road,” Davis said.
In another Real America’s Voice interview, Davis explained, “If you want to disqualify under the under the post-Civil War disqualification clause in the 14th Amendment, you have to bring federal criminal charges for insurrection or rebellion.”
A federal jury must then find Trump guilty. That has not happened.
The Democrats’ ridiculous lawfare strategy against the leading GOP candidate must be beaten soundly in the courts and then repudiated by the voters in November 2024.
The future of the American experiment in self-government depends on it.
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